‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ Team Talks Bringing New Beasts to Life

For some, taking on the challenge of creating a new story for one of the world’s most famous monsters might be daunting. But for the creative team of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, everyone was just excited to have the opportunity to play in the sandbox of such an incredibly well-known kaiju.

“I love tackling different challenges. I gravitate towards things I haven’t done before and I enjoy combining tones and styles,” Matt Shakman, who directed the first two episodes of the Apple TV+ series, tells TV Insider. “When I read the script for the first episode of Monarch, I was so taken by what [co-creators] Chris [Black] and Matt [Fraction] had created. It felt like such a fresh way to tell a story. This was a multi-generational human drama as well as mystery show that also happened to involve giant monsters.”

Shakman’s resume is formidable enough to intimidate any monster: Among his many shows and movies, he’s directed Disney+‘s WandaVision and HBO‘s Game of Thrones, and he’s on board to direct Marvel’s upcoming Fantastic Four film. “The things that you’ve done before can’t help but inform you,” he says. “Working on Game of Thrones and doing dragon battles from the ground level looking up certainly helped tell the Godzilla story, and all the great dramas I’ve worked on similarly in trying to create stories where you’re rooting for these characters and you can buy into their emotional stories… you’re working on building a world of imagination for everyone on that set.”

Apple TV+

Sean Konrad, the show’s VFX Supervisor who quite literally builds that world of imagination into actual monsters, is excited for fans to see beasts both old and new — some of which are seen in the very first episode. “The Mother Longlegs is a great example,” says Konard. “We saw it in [2017’s] Kong: Skull Island, but that was limited. We get to bring it to the daylight fully exposed and really dial in on things. And the Mantleclaw as it rises out of the ground has all this sand and water dripping off of it… The vendor who worked on that, Rising Sun Pictures, really paid attention to the photography of the location we shot at.”

Despite the monsters and the lore, however, executive producer Tory Tunnell emphasizes that you don’t need to see the films in order to watch the show.

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“This is a show for everyone,” Tunnell says. “For hardcore fans, they get to see, how did Monarch come to be, what is this organization that we sort of saw in the shadows and is pretty dominant by later features, who created it, and why was it mired in secrecy? But for new viewers, they’re coming in on the ground floor, too. And they’re learning about this organization, but fundamentally, they’re learning about these characters they’ll fall in love with.”

And speaking of falling in love: if you can feel the passion behind the creation of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, that’s because everyone who worked on it put their own passion and care into the series.

“I just want to do right by an IP that I love, and the idea of being able to make a project with Godzilla was so wonderful,” Shakman says. “It was definitely something on the bucket list. I didn’t want to let Godzilla down. I didn’t want to let down any of the fans as well.”

“We got to go to Tokyo, we were in Hawaii… We went to a top of the glacier with Kurt Russell,” Tunnell says of the filming experience. “Our show is an escapist, fun globe-trotting adventure. At the heart of it, it’s something that’s real, and I think that’s where our show can really take off and matter. Yes, it’s so much fun, but there’s something you truly relate to.”

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Fridays, Apple TV+