Godzilla 2 , sequel to the 2012 American monster flick, will be written by Zach Shields and Michael Dougherty, the duo behind last year’s Christmas creature feature Krampus.
According to Variety, which broke news of the new Godzilla writing team, the addition of Doughtery and Shields may be the beginning of one of those new-fangled movie writers’ rooms (like with the Transformers series) that will steer King Kong and Godzilla into a head-on conflict in 2020.
While Shields’ only previous writing credit is on Krampus (which we didn’t like), Dougherty has a more promising background. He wrote the underrated Superman Returns, series best X-Men 2 and the solid 2007 horror anthology, Trick ‘r Treat.
The first Godzilla was written by Max Borenstein (who also wrote the upcoming Kong: Skull Island), which captured both creature feature fun and a surprisingly serious tone, even if its human characters were a bit lacking. Shields and Dougherty’s careers suggest Godzilla 2 might have a very different feel, likely embracing more monsters, more spectacle and less seriousness.
Godzilla 2 will be out in theaters on March 22, 2019. Hopefully it will learn some lessons from the excellent Toho reboot, Shin Godzilla.
