Matt Fraction talks bringing Godzilla to TV in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
“This is a chance to really build out the world of the Monsterverse”: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters EP Matt Fraction talks about the advantages of telling the Godzilla story on television.
Let’s face it, it doesn’t get much bigger than Godzilla. I’m not just talking about the size of the legendary (no pun intended) monster, but the scale of his movies too. Godzilla’s films are known for big action, big destruction, and the largest stakes you can imagine. How do you adapt something like that for a medium like television? Legendary Television is bringing Godzilla to television with the new Apple+ series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.
The series is part of the Monsterverse, a continuity of films starring Godzilla, King Kong, and a variety of other Legendary Pictures monsters. The first episode of the series was screened at New York Comic Con, followed by a brief panel discussion with the showrunners. During the discussion, executive producer Matt Fraction spoke about the advantages of telling Godzilla’s story for the television medium.
“Movies are spectacles. We buy tickets for them. We go out to see them with a lot of people,” Fraction began. “Television is a thing you invite into your home. People are the key to that. You have to have characters and a world that you want to visit weekly. People you want to spend time with. That’s the thing about the movies, you always want to spend more time in that world, in a world where Godzilla is a thing that you have to worry about every day. This is a chance to really build out the world of the Monsterverse and live in it in a way the movies can’t.”
There have been Godzilla television shows before, but they’ve been cartoons, puppet shows, or other novelty features. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is the first serialized drama to focus on Godzilla and his world. Can it deliver that same scale that Godzilla’s films do? Fraction doesn’t seem to think it will be a problem. We’ll have to judge for ourselves when Monarch: Legacy of Monsters premieres on November 17.
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