The Surprising Regret Adam Wingard Has About Godzilla Vs. Kong
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We are nothing if not living testaments to our regrets, and few aspects of existence have the potential to kneecap us, emotionally speaking, the way that romance can. Realizing that a relationship was doomed from the start is a pain equalled only by wondering, until your dying day, what might have been. Just ask Adam Wingard, the director of Godzilla vs. Kong — now available on HBO Max — who could have made Godzilla and Kong make out but didn't, much to his shame.
That Godzilla and Kong should kiss is an undisputed fact in the corners of the internet where the argument could be made that man was the real monster all along. It's an easy image to picture if you try — two titans, their mammoth hands gently brushing against one another's faces, their tongues flapping like the sails of grand ocean vessels. Okay, now stop picturing it. Yes, a particular subculture has developed around the idea that Godzilla and Kong would probably be really good at going to mouth town on each other's faces, and the subject came up in a recent AV Club interview with Wingard. "Why don't they kiss?" Marah Eakin asked the acclaimed filmmaker. "As a director, can you address that?" And because Gottfried Leibniz was right and we live in the best of all possible worlds, that's exactly what he did.
Should Godzilla and Kong have shared a tender moment?
"Well, you know, I do have regrets," the director of You're Next opined, "that like, when I had access to [special effects company] Weta [Workshop], that I didn't get them to do more ridiculous, like, things like that. Like, have Kong and Godzilla kiss. But then have an actual, fully rendered version of it, you know?" And while Wingard did manage to get his hands on a few choice, professionally animated shots of ridiculousness — one clip of the enormous, gorilla-like Kong looking flabbergasted which was ultimately cut from the movie stood out at the top of the director's mind — he elected not to commission any shots of the two iconic monsters locked in a battle of lips and feelings.
It's a shame, really, since there's a great series of stories to be told there: a follow up movie in which the two get married called Godzilla + Kong; a sequel about their contentious divorce titled Kramer vs Kramer vs Godzilla vs Kong; a family film in which Godzilla, robbed of custody of the pair's children, disguises itself as an upper-class nanny and surreptitiously shoehorns itself back into the life of its family, calling itself Mrs. Doubtfirebreath. The possibilities are endless!
But the course of true love never did run smooth. Nevertheless, Godzilla vs. Kong is now playing in theaters and available to stream on HBO Max.