Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire director Adam Wingard is a self-confessed fan of the Shōwa era of Godzilla movies, explaining many of the wackier creative decisions he's made with the MonsterVerse.
Those movies typically saw Godzilla hanging out with his fellow kaiju on Monster Island, and the MonsterVerse's version of that is Hollow Earth.
During the franchise's latest entry, we learn that Mothra has been hidden deep beneath the surface and, in an interview with Den of Geek, Wingard opened up on what it meant to bring that character together with Godzilla and Kong to battle the Skar King.
"There’s a moment in the film where you’ve got Godzilla, Kong, and Mothra in front of the Sphinx," he recalls, "and sometimes when I just looked at it in post, I’d be like, 'I can’t believe we’ve filled the frame with these three characters.' There’s some shots that are like dream shots for a fan of especially Shōwa films where you can’t believe that in one frame you have all of this going on here."
Wingard went on to explain the reason behind his decision to give Mothra a role in the story. "The main villain of this film is really a kind of devilish character. Like an alternate title for the film could be 'Kong Goes to Hell.' So if Kong’s going to hell and he’s finding these apes toiling away down there under the devil who’s the Scar King, then Mothra’s really this very angelic spirit."
"And that’s the way I approached her as a character, very ethereal," he adds. "She’s a pure vessel within the MonsterVerse and she’s like the great negotiator of the monsters."
"Everybody respects Mothra," Wingard continued. "She’s the one monster that all the monsters I think will let do her thing, and it’s the only monster I think that Godzilla truly respects. He respects her opinion. So Mothra says, 'Listen, we need your help,' Godzilla’s gonna listen."
Mothra's return has caused some confusion among MonsterVerse fans, though, as the Titan died in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. The door was left open for her to return after another egg was discovered, so is this Mothra a resurrected version of the one that died, the Titan that came out of the egg, or the true original?
"Anything I say right now wouldn’t necessarily be canon," Wingard teased, "so I don’t want to necessarily tell people what she is. I have my own thoughts of what this version of Mothra is, but I think it’ll be exciting to kind of let that unfold because I’m sure we’ll explore more."
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is now playing in theaters.