‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ Bosses Focus on Characters & Family — and Promise ‘Show About Monsters’

Make no mistake: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is a story about the towering and terrifying kaiju that have, throughout the years, fascinated and enthralled legions of fans — so much so that a dedicated “Monsterverse” has been created for the characters and its films. But the new Apple TV+ series, which debuts November 17, is also something more: It’s a multi-generational story about family, connection, and legacy — and according to series co-creator Matt Fraction, that was the reason to create the show at all.

“We can’t compete with the scale and spectacle of the movie — the worst thing we can do is make 10 small versions of that,” Fraction tells TV Insider. “So, how do you tell 10 hours of story? We have to start with the people.”

In this case, the people are Kurt Russell‘s ex-Army officer Lee Shaw (whose younger 1950s self is — in a brilliant casting fashion — played by his son Wyatt) as well as Cate (Anna Sawai) and Kentaro (Ren Watabe), half-siblings who become involved with Shaw after trying to figure out their family’s connection to Monarch, the shadowy organization that for decades has focused on tracking the monstrous beasts.

“I think we all understood them handing us the keys to the car and saying, don’t crash it,” says co-creator Chris Black. “What we needed to do is not worry that it’s Godzilla. We needed to worry about creating a good TV show and just focus on creating a cast of characters and sending them on a journey that people will be excited about and compelled by and interested in.”

Apple TV+

Black notes that because Legendary, who owns the Monsterverse IP, was incredibly open when it came to giving him and Fraction carte blanche for this new story, in return, the creators felt they had the freedom to build out the show the way they wanted. “We wanted to tell a show that told an intimate story about trauma and drama and betrayal and generational trauma. That was a show that we would watch,” he says. And in addition to a show that was watchable for its human story, the creators wanted to create something global to reflect just how encompassing the Monsterverse can be and how many places it can affect. Fortunately, the many on-location shoots helped to make that happen.

“We go all over the place,” says Fraction. “We shot in Japan, we went up to a glacier in Mount Breckenridge in British Columbia, we shot in the desert, we shot in Hawaii. [The show] really has a massive globetrotting sense to it, and that’s what I’m most excited about. It really is a story told on the run through all these amazing locales and places and things you don’t get to see on TV all the time.”

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Make no mistake: There are plenty of monsters who come to life in the show, set in the wake of 2014’s Godzilla, which some of which devoted fans will delight in seeing. But if the creators are being honest, that’s only part of the show they hope resonates and excites viewers. Godzilla showed the world that these titans were real and forced society to start to question their place as humans at the top of the food chain. And that’s part of the narrative thread that Black and Fraction helped weave through the series.

“I hope that we’ve managed to succeed on delivering the big moments and the big spectacle, but I hope that the takeaway is ‘this is really an intimate story about family,” says Black, who calls Monarch “a show about monsters, but Godzilla is not the only monster in the show.”

Fraction breaks it down even further: “It’s a show about a young woman who learns a terrible secret about her father at the worst possible time. “And that’s a great hook for telling human stories.”

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Series Premiere (two episodes), Friday, November 17, Apple TV+