What monsters do you want to see in Legendary's "Monsterverse?"

[JMBuilder]

Pretty self-explanatory title for my fellow kaiju fanatics. Having recently binge-watched a lot of older monster movies, I figured I'd brainstorm and open it up for discussion, because why not?

I'll start with my big three:

 

Rhedosaurus

The very first of the giant city-smashing reptiles. The fictional dinosaur Rhedosaurus, more commonly referred to as "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (hence the title of the movie it's in), debuted in 1953, serving as a direct inspiration for Japan's own Godzilla a little over a year later. Although originally intended to have his own "atomic breath" from the nuke test that revived him, this concept was ultimately scrapped, and the beast was simply made a large prehistoric survivor relying on his powerful biting and stomping.

Simple, yet original. The film is great, and the monster is a must-have in the ever-growing cinematic universe of iconic monsters.

 

Behemoth

Now, we already have a "Titanus Behemoth" in the Monsterverse, so there would need to be a name-change in order to shoehorn in "Britain's Godzilla." I suspect, however, that this has already been done in the form of "Titanus Leviathan," who just so happens to be the Loch Ness Monster (and the name is more fitting for the original monster since, biblically speaking, Behemoth refers to a land creature and Leviathan to a sea creature).

Behemoth was a severely irradiated paleosaurus capable of channeling the energy from his decaying body in blinding and lethal pulses of extreme radiation. The film was surprisingly graphic for its time, not afraid to show people (even children) dying from horrible radiation burns and poisoning, something that most kaiju films understandably shy away from for the sake of their audiences. It made the monster over-the-top murderous and disturbing.

 

Varan

A standalone kaiju from Toho's other iconic franchises, Varan was similar to the Rhedosaurus in the sense that he was a prehistoric survivor, not necessarily "mutated" in any way; simply a bog-standard dinosaur, with the exception of patagium that allowed him to glide great distances. The film, Varan the Unbelievable, is a surprisingly obscure and underrated film.

As a Monsterverse Titan, Varan could be a cousin species to the Rhedosaurus given their pretty obvious similarities.

 

Those are my top picks. Who wants to join in the brainstorm?

Edited May 20, 2021 by JMBuilder