Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 is about to premiere on the 2026 TV schedule, bringing MonsterVerse fans back to the time period between Godzilla and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Because it’s a prequel show, obviously the Apple TV subscription-exclusive series is restricted to a degree about the kind of story it can tell in order to avoid continuity errors. So when it comes to including Easter eggs, Monarch executive producer Tory Tunnell told CinemaBlend that finding such opportunities is like solving a “puzzle.”
During my recent interview with Tunnell, I asked her if there were any plot points that the Monarch: Legacy of Monsters team wanted to include in the well-received Season 2, but weren’t able to because it would conflict too much with what happens in movies set later on the MonsterVerse timeline. She answered:
One of the things that we always like is the puzzle of fitting within a pre-established world where we're fitting into a timeline. It's one of the things that's so exciting about the fact that we have our past timeline. It gives us a big playground because there's been less established there, but also it's really fun to do the math of figuring out how to play within the Gareth Edwards film and the Michael Dougherty film.
Monarch Season 1’s “present day” storyline took place in 2015, i.e. one year after Godzilla, or what’s known in-universe as G-Day. Then, when Cate, May and Keiko emerged from Axis Mundi in the Season 1 finale, it was 2017. While that’s a sizable time jump, that still places the series two years ahead of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, when Godzilla tussles with Rodan and Ghidorah. It’s also a time when Kong is still living on Skull Island, whereas in the MonsterVerse’s true present day, he’s living the good life in Hollow Earth.
So there’s only so much that Monarch: Legacy of Monsters can do with Godzilla and Kong, but that poses a fun challenge for the people working on the show. Like Tory Tunnell said, there’s still a pretty big window of time to flesh out the MonsterVerse’s past, and there are even times when the future can be foreshadowed on Monarch. As Tunnell continued:
Where's the room? Where are the opportunities to suggest the seed of something that we're going to see in a movie and be able to continue to duck and weave in a way that feels really exciting?
Perhaps the biggest example of foreshadowing in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 1 was when Applied Experimental Technologies was renamed Apex Cybernetics. That’s the same company that was introduced in Godzilla vs. Kong, where its CEO, Walter Simmons, constructed Mechagodzilla as a way for humanity to conquer the Titans. He paid dearly for that endeavor when the mechanical monstrosity was possessed by Ghidorah’s consciousness and went on a rampage.
That’s a long ways off from happening when the events of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 unfold, but hopefully this next batch of episodes will help shed light on how Apex got to that point amidst dealing with the threat of Titan X. The new season gets underway on February 27, and new episodes will continue dropping Fridays on Apple TV until May 1. Let’s also not forget that the next MonsterVerse movie, Godzilla x Kong: Supernova, hits theaters on March 26, 2027.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
