Godzilla Vs. Kong Had To Redo A Scene Thanks To Top Gun: Maverick

Adam Wingard's monster mash movie "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" is first-rate hooey, and that is meant as a compliment. It rolls with its kaiju mayhem with the sugared-up enthusiasm of a wiggly eight-year-old, inserting little thoughtfulness, emotion, or meaning into the proceedings. Many years ago, Godzilla stood as a symbol for nuclear devastation, and then later, a symbol of Japanese national pride. King Kong, meanwhile, was clearly a symbol for slavery and the perpetuation of colonialist entitlement. Wingard doesn't engage with either monster, seeing them instead as giant action figures that are real real good at knockin' s*** over. These are sentiments repeated from Wingard's glorious 2021 film "Godzilla vs. Kong," the film that cracked the code on Warner Bros. ever-growing MonsterVerse movies. 

As with any film to feature King Kong, "GvK" featured scenes of human pilots taking to the air to battle the encroaching titans. Because this film was made in 2018 and 2019, though, it's no longer lightweight maneuverable biplanes sent to attack monsters, but high-speed fighter jets like the ones seen in "Top Gun." Indeed, Adam Wingard used some of the visuals and editing from Tony Scott's celebrated 1986 clunker to realize some of his movie's plane scenes, as "Top Gun" has become a notable fixture in popular culture. 

But then Joseph Kosinski's 2022 blockbuster "Top Gun: Maverick" came out, and threw water on Wingard's monster fire. According to an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Wingard noticed a shot in "Maverick" depicting star Tom Cruise jolting back and forth in a jet cockpit. Wingard had already  visualized a similar shot for a pilot in "GvK." Although Wingard was proud of his idea, he had to conceive of a new way to shoot it, trying to make his shot as dynamic as Kosinski's.

One might recall a notable fight in "Godzilla vs. Kong" wherein the title monsters threw punches while standing on massive aircraft carriers at sea. It was here that the most planes would be filmed taking off. 

To clarify the timeline of events, "Top Gun: Maverick" began filming on May 30, 2018. "Godzilla vs. Kong," meanwhile, began shooting the following November. The previews for "Maverick" started to make their way to the public as Wingard was shooting, coming out right when he was choreographing a key airplane scene for "Godzilla vs. Kong." Wingard recognized Kosinski made the shot better and he had to pivot in response. The director said: 

"When the 'Top Gun: Maverick' trailer was released, there's that famous shot where Tom Cruise jolts forward as he flies off the aircraft carrier, and we had a similar shot in 'Godzilla vs. Kong.' So when we saw that Tom Cruise version, I was like, 'Guys, we have to start over because everybody knows what this looks like now. He really flew off that aircraft carrier.' So we actually reinvented our shot so that it had the same mechanics as that, and it's interesting how you're influenced by these movies that come out."

Wingard was proud of his ability to be nimble and to try to, essentially, outdo or at least match the quality of another blockbuster ... in real time. "Once somebody does it better," Wingard said, "you can't step back from there. You have to keep moving it forward even if you're in the middle of production." 

Some films have the bad luck of being released within shouting distance of another film very much like it. Wingard at least was altered enough to recognize that another film was doing something similar to him.