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With Kong: Skull Island generating strong reviews before its March 10 release, Legendary Entertainment and Warner Bros. already have their sights set on the big prize: the eventual Godzilla vs. Kong movie.
That project is acting as the culmination (at least at this point) of the company’s series of movies featuring silver screen super species.
The studio is putting together a writers room to break the story, with Terry Rossio, the veteran scribe best known for co-writing the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, tapped to head the creature feature league. Once he and his cohorts work out the best ideas and beats for the story, a writer will be chosen to write the script.
Joining Rossio in the room will be:
Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne, who co-wrote Star Trek Beyond and who are working on Star Trek 4.
Lindsey Beer, who is currently adapting The Kingkiller Chronicles for Lionsgate.
Cat Vasko, currently penning Warner Bros.’ adaptation of period circus love story Queen of the Air.
T.S. Nowlin, the writer of the Maze Runner movies, who already worked for Legendary on its Pacific Rim sequel.
Jack Paglen, who wrote the Johnny Depp-starring Transcendence and who also worked on the upcoming Alien: Covenant.
And J. Michael Straczynski, the comic book writer and creator of 1990s sci-fi show Babylon 5 whose recent credits include World War Z and co-creating Netflix show Sense8 with the Wachowskis.
Legendary, with Warners, continues to build out their monster universe centered on classic silver screen creatures Godzilla and King Kong.
Godzilla, released in 2014, was the first entry, and Skull Island, during its development, was retrofitted to fold into an overall story. Legendary is now in the casting stages of a sequel to Godzilla, titled Godzilla: King of the Monsters, with Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga and Millie Bobby Brown so far on the roll call. That movie has a March 22, 2019, release date. Godzilla vs. Kong is eyeing May 29, 2020.
Studios in recent years have begun taking to the writers room approach in order to brainstorm and create a connected cinematic universe for film franchises that may not have obvious connections or to build out a mythology. This tends to occur when there isn’t a strong foundation such as the decades of stories that buttress the Marvel and DC movies.
Paramount put together rooms to organize a Transformers cinematic universe as well to create one based on multiple Hasbro properties. Universal also has one for its movie universe featuring monsters such as the Mummy, the Bride of Frankenstein, and the Invisible Man.
Rossio is repped by WME and Dodie Gold Management, McKay and Payne are repped by Verve and Kaplan/Perrone. Beer is repped by WME and Gang Tyre, Vasko by WME, Grandview and Hansen Jacobson. Nowlin is repped by ICM Partners and Management 360, while Straczynski is repped by Paradigm and Gendler & Kelly.
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