We’re a little over nine weeks away from the release of Godzilla vs. Kong in theaters and on HBO Max, and fans are starting to get a bit impatient waiting for a trailer to arrive. Indeed, a $160 million blockbuster sequel with the fate of an entire cinematic universe resting on its shoulders is cutting it pretty close when it comes to kicking off the marketing campaign in earnest, and a single GIF accompanied by a couple of seconds’ worth of footage in a recent sizzle reel isn’t going to be enough.
After all, with HBO Max unavailable outside of the United States, the latest chapter in the MonsterVerse needs to put in a decent performance at the international box office in order to ensure that the franchise gets to continue, which is far from a guarantee in the current climate. Obviously, given their status as two of the most iconic kaiju in the history of cinema the focus will largely be placed on the title characters, but Godzilla: King of the Monsters teased that the world is full of Titans looking to reclaim their place at the top of the food chain.
The last entry in the series revealed a further fifteen Titans, but only briefly showed four of them on the screen. A fifth was glimpsed through a cloud of smoke via surveillance footage, though, and the movie’s novelization gave Mokele-Mbembe a name. Described as an earless elephant with downward-facing tusks, a crocodile-like mouth with thousands of teeth and a large horn that glows green with energy, the mystery monster was repeatedly sighted near the Congo River throughout the 20th Century.
The entire plot of Godzilla vs. Kong can’t be powered entirely by the conflict between the two main draws, and with a war for the fate of the planet already promised, the intriguing-sounding Mokele-Mbembe may finally get its chance to shine in the film.