Hello everyone! I hope all of you has had a wonderful Christmas! And I hope all of you had a wonderful 2024, also! We had a lot of stuff happen for Godzilla this year. The year started off with the conclusion of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 1, followed up with Godzilla Minus One winning an Oscar (a first for the franchise), the release of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and making $571 million worldwide making it the highest grossing Monsterverse film, Season 2 of Monarch going into production, a sixth Monsterverse film going into development, and the year ending with Godzilla's 70th Anniversary and new Japanese Godzilla film announced.
As we head into 2025, there is going to be expectations and wishes that people would like to see happen. I think next year's expectations are going to be more tempered.
New Monster Movie For Apple TV+:
Apple TV+ has a new monster movie coming out in 2025 and just in time for Valentines Day, no less. Produced by SkyDance, The Gorge is about two highly trained operatives (Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller) becoming close after being sent to protect opposite sides of a mysterious gorge. When monsters emerge, they must work together to survive what lies within. The movie is directed by Scott Derrickson who is most known for Doctor Strange, The Black Phone, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and Sinister.
In the trailer, we do see bits and pieces of the hellish environment looks like, but the movie does not really show you the monster/monsters hunting the main characters, Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Levi (Miles Teller). All you see is a quick shot of a hand slamming down next to Drasa's foot before she pulls away out of shock. The hand looks humanoid. It is not quite human because the skin and claws looks scarred and burned. It sort of reminds me of the Shin Godzilla design, which the skin of Godzilla looks scarred and charred.
The main focus of the story is that this is a love story between these two operatives that just so happens to have a monster in it. The way they interact the characters interact in the beginning starts off with them flirting and writing notes to each other before all hell breaks loose. Levi tries cross the gorge, but after he falls in Drasa dives in to save him.
Sigourney Weaver is also in this movie, but I have the feeling she is not going to play a big role. She is only seen in the trailer once asking Levi if he is under any military contract at the moment with him responding that he does not have a reason to be under contract, which then she gives him the job. Despite being a big name actress, I am not really expecting her to be in the movie playing a big role based on this trailer. I am not expecting her to be like in her early years when she was in Alien and Aliens fighting xenomorphs and calling the queen alien a bitch.
Overall, I am actually looking forward to this movie. I am not expecting it to be a groundbreaking movie, but it looks like a fun movie. Since it releases on Valentines Day, maybe it would be a nice date night movie for any guy or girl who is a fan of monster movies.
Jurassic World Rebirth A Hit Or Miss:
One of the big blockbusters of 2025, Jurassic World Rebirth seeks to bring the franchise back to the original roots. Five years after Jurassic World Dominion, an expedition braves isolated equatorial regions to extract DNA from three massive dinosaurs for a groundbreaking medical breakthrough. The movie stars Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Rupert Friend, and Mahershala Ali.
After the financial success of Jurassic World Dominion, Universal Studios wanted a sequel in production immediately for a July 2025 release. A tall order, but doable as they turned to Gareth Edwards to direct the seventh "Jurassic" film. Edwards is known for films such as Monsters, Godzilla (2014), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and The Creator.
While I am always up for a new dinosaur movie there are a couple things I am worried about this new installment. One of them is the director himself. Gareth has a lot of fans that love his movies and I am not one of them. He tries to make serious sci-fi movies that looks grounded in a sense of realism. He does a really great job on that aspect, but the story in the movies lack character. I have not seen The Creator. However, the movies I have seen don't really focus on the characters themselves. It is just moments getting the characters from Point A to Point B to Point C.
Despite my reservations on Gareth Edwards, he is not who I am most worried about. What I worry about most is the film's production being rushed in time for release. The movie was first announced back in February 2024 with David Leitch originally set to direct. However, David Leitch dropped out shortly after due to creative differences. Meaning between the release of Jurassic World Dominion in 2022 up to February 2024 Universal already had an idea for the movie. With the amount of time needed to produce the film in time for release there was little to no room for a director to add any creative spin on the film. According to Edwards in an interview, he has always wanted to work on a "Jurassic" movie and he dropped all of his plans to work on Rebirth.
My wishes for the movie are to actually have a good story and not leave me snoozing with a messy rush job. I was really disappointed by how Dominion turned out to be a big nothing-burger and I am not too optimistic about this one. I would like to see the franchise take a step back to see what the original movies did right. Have the movies be about the characters with a universally understood narrative that can be agreed on. I hope that Universal didn't end up in a situation where they were so preoccupied with whether or not they could they didn't stop to think if they should.
Troll 2 Coming To A Netflix Near You:
In 2022, the Norwegian monster film Troll was released to Netflix and resulted with positive critical acclaim from fans of the genre. While most of the criticism towards the movie was the reused scenes that may be recognizable from Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla: King of the Monsters it also took some creative measures integrating the mythology of trolls to make the movie feel more grounded in reality and more lively.
At the end of Troll there was a post-credit scene that showed a pile of rubble that showed some slight movement indicating another mountain troll could be lurking. For a brief time, it had people wondering if a sequel could be in the works. This past November, we got confirmation that this was to be the case.
Revealed by Deadline in their most anticipated international films coming to Netflix list, they list Troll 2 with Roar Uthaug returning to direct the sequel. There is no plot synopsis at this time, but confirmed cast members include Sara Khorami, Jon Ketil Johnsen, Gard B. Eidsvold, Kim S. Flack-Jorgensen, Aksel Almaas, and Trond Magnum. Three of the cast members (Eidsvold, Flack, and Magnum) were in the first movie now returned to take on the mountain troll for the second time.
In an interview with What's on Netflix, Troll producer Kristian Strand Sinkerund revealed they have ambitions to make a sequel and perhaps two sequels. This might mean Troll 2 may be part of a Troll trilogy.
This is definitely one of my anticipated movies of next year. I am excited to see just how the story will continue. Is it just this one troll that survived or is there a colony of them? Are there other monsters other than trolls that will cause some sort of fight to happen? However this film turn out I just hope it is just as fun as the first movie.
When Is The "Cloverfield" Sequel?:
We know this is coming, but the question is when we will start hearing about it. Ever since Cloverfield came out in 2008 there were talks here and there about a direct sequel. By 2010 all talks about a sequel died down. We did get 10 Cloverfield Lane in 2016 and The Cloverfield Paradox in 2018, yet the direction for the films were entirely separate from the 2008 film with no actual connection. Producer J.J. Abrams wanted to make the Cloverfield titles into an anthology series of movies. However, the main criticisms towards those two movies is that the scripts used for them were not originally written for Cloverfield. They were originally written for titles "Valencia" and "God Particle." The Cloverfield Paradox made an attempt to explain where the monster came from, but it was forced and crammed in with a script that had no connection to Cloverfield whatsoever.
So any hope for a direct sequel seemed like a pipe dream. That was not until September 2022 when Deadline announced Babak Anvari was going to direct an actual sequel to Cloverfield.
At this point, there is no other information on the project. Much like the previous movies they are all being worked under secrecy. Nobody is allowed to give any information on the movie until Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot drop the first trailer. It is all part of J.J.'s "mystery box" approach. Keep everything a surprise and add small details that if you blink you will miss it, which leads to a large viral marketing campaign to give a broader story than what the movie tells.
My prediction for this year was that we were going to get the trailer as it seemed as though enough time has passed to show something. Unfortunately, that was not the case. There have been a couple of rumors that I did hear. One of them was that the movie was already in post-production and filming was finished. That rumor was in 2023. This year, I heard the movie is in production hell and everyone has different and conflicting ideas as to which direction they want to take this Cloverfield sequel.
When it comes to rumors I take them with a grain of salt. Until we get more information there is no way of knowing what is really happening. I have even tried messaging the writer, Joe Barton, on Twitter/X if he could give a small update as to what is going on with the movie and I have not received a response back. So they are really keeping a tight lip on the project.
I do wish that we do get something for this movie in 2025. Hopefully a trailer will get released. I am very curious as to how this sequel will follow up years after Cloverfield was released.
Monsterverse Expectations Tempered:
When it comes to the Monsterverse there is going not going to be much happening. That is not to say there will not be any news for Godzilla and the Monsterverse. We will still get rumors and we may certainly hear about Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 2 for Apple TV+.
We know that the next season will take place on Skull Island and Kong will be front and center this time. We don't know if Godzilla will still appear and what kind of story the next season will tell. We had this whole story in the first season about two half-siblings coming together to find their father and learning about how they are connected to the secret organization Monarch. The final episode finds our main characters forced to join APEX and fleeing into one of their bunkers when Kong showed up. I do think we will hear more about the story in season 2. It will be interesting to see how big of a role APEX plays and how they are competing with Monarch.
My only wish for season 2 is for better character development. I was so attached to Lee Shaw, Bill Randa, and Dr. Keiko Miura and I wished their story was the show's main characters as it told how Monarch was first found, but we got stuck with Cate, May, and Kentaro who I did not like as much. I found them to be whiny and the relationship between Cate and May really forced as Ken was just pushed in the background like a third wheel.
When it comes to the other projects from Legendary Entertainment they are cooking up something, but we are not going to hear much of it. The sixth Monsterverse film is still in early development. We only have a director announced for the film. We could hear about casting. I do not think we will see Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, and Kaylee Hottle again. I think their stories as Ilene Andrews, Bernie Hayes, and Jia are done. We might see Dan Stevens return as Trapper. However, I expect an entirely new cast of actors and characters.
I have two wishes for the sixth movie. My first one is to bring the Monsterverse to a more grounded and serious story. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters has already begun doing that and I want to see the next movie go back to that. I know that the reason why Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire did so well in the box office was because majority of viewers saw it as a fun movie. On the other hand, reactions for that movie has been really mixed between being really fun to being really goofy (in a bad way). The main audience for these movies are not only fans, but mainly children. Legendary needs to sell merchandise. So I think there needs to be a perfect medium between fun and serious in the next movie.
My second wish is to have some sort of plan. Where are these movies leading to now? After Legendary and Warner Bros. acquired the "Skull Island" movie (Now known as Kong: Skull Island) from Universal Studios back in 2015 everyone knew right away that Godzilla and King Kong were going to have a rematch. Everyone knew that Godzilla vs Kong was where the Monsterverse was originally leading to. Now, there does not seem to be any game plan on where to take these movies next. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire was sort of rushed and thrown out there. I want to see Legendary take their time making the next movie and plan out their end goal. What should we expect next in this movie series? We know that they will keep making these movies as long as they make money, but that money is going to run out eventually. I think it is good to have some sort of plan as to what these movies are building up to.
Waiting For The Next Godzilla Movie Will Be Short:
Ever since Godzilla Minus One was released November 3rd, 2023, the movie has been proclaimed as the best Godzilla film this generation has seen. Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, the film went back to Godzilla's original roots as this monster that was baptized by the hydrogen bomb that Japan had to face. It was a story about Koichi Shikishima who is tormented by his guilt for not being able to save the men on Odo Island from Godzilla when he first attacked. As time passed, Japan begins to rebuild and so does Shikishima with a new family that he forms with Noriko and an orphaned girl Akiko. However, just as things could not get worse Godzilla appears and Shikishima must finish his fight that started on Odo Island.
The movie was so overwhelmingly positive that it won an Oscar for Best VFX and became the third highest grossing foreign film to be released in America.
Having a budget of less than $15 million this had a lot of critics pointing the finger at Hollywood for making movies with over inflated budgets. Of course, Hollywood will be Hollywood and just ignore the criticisms yet it really did shine some light on how we see visual effects today. If a Godzilla movie with such a small budget could make a movie look this good then what is Hollywood doing with movies that cost between $200 million – $500 million? With that being said, Godzilla Minus One really got people talking and given such a high praise.
Over the course of 2024, Yamazaki has talked many times in interviews about whether he would come back to do a sequel. At the time, he was not sure, but he would love to do one more film and he had ideas if ever did. By November 3rd, we got the official announcement that Takashi Yamazaki is returning to make another Godzilla film.
Takashi Yamazaki did say that if were to return the movie will most likely be a "versus" movie. He is also interested in remaking Godzilla vs Hedorah. So we could already know what this second movie will be. To tell a serious story while showing two monsters fighting is very difficult to balance. Usually one or the other suffers and it is mainly the human characters that suffers. But I believe Yamazaki can do it. He has made me actually care for the characters in Minus One in a way that made me root for them over Godzilla for the first time. I believe he can tell another compelling story that shows how these monsters fighting impact these people.
That is an aspect that has not really been explored at all. We have seen buildings torn down, people dying, bunkers being made in case monsters attack, but we never saw how these monsters really impacted these people on a personal level much like how Godzilla affected Shikishima on a personal level.
However, the question is if this will be an actual sequel to Godzilla Minus One or will it be another one-off? I want to say it is a mix of both. I think a soft-sequel is the best approach for this. Keep the same Godzilla design and have some references to Minus One, but just mainly tell an all new story that stands out on its own and does not look as connected to Minus One. In my personal opinion, Minus One is good by itself and doesn't need a sequel. A direct sequel I fear would only tarnish the movie if the sequel is not done right.
I do think the wait for this next movie is not going to take very long. In fact, I honestly believe that through out 2025 we will hear more about what Takashi Yamazaki has in store. We first heard about Godzilla Minus One back in 2022 when the Godzilla app listed a cast call for a monster movie and it was that same year when we got the logo for the movie during Godzilla-Fest. It was in July 2023 when we got the official title and teaser trailer for the movie.
With that in mind, if Yamazaki puts in the same amount of work for the new movie we could very well be hearing details through out 2025 up to the next Godzilla-Fest in November. So the wait for this movie is not going to take very long. If I were a betting man, I would bet this movie will release in 2026. By that point, we would already have the second season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and information for the sixth Monsterverse film would start to sprinkle here and there. So this is going to be a short wait as we occupy ourselves with searching for any information that comes out.
That is everything to expect in 2025. I want to know what you are hoping or expecting to happen in the new year. Was there anything that I missed that you are anticipating? Leave a comment in the comments section of what you expect in 2025. Make sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Minds, MeWe, and TRUTH Social to stay up to date for more news, reviews, and discussions. I wish all of you a Happy New Year!