Exclusive: Screenwriter Max Borenstein On ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ & Continuing The MonsterVerse Franchise
Now playing in theaters and on HBO Max from Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures is the action-packed Godzilla Vs. Kong, the fourth MonsterVerse installment. The franchise kicked off in 2014 with Gareth Edwards' Godzilla, followed by Kong: Skull Island in 2017 and Godzilla: King of the Monsters in 2019.
Directed by Adam Wingard from a script written by Max Borenstein and Eric Pearson, the film stars Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Shun Oguri, Eiza González, Jessica Henwick, Julian Dennison with Kyle Chandler and Demián Bichir.
Legends collide as Godzilla and Kong, the two most powerful forces of nature, clash on the big screen in a spectacular battle for the ages. As Monarch embarks on a perilous mission into fantastic uncharted terrain, unearthing clues to the Titans’ very origins, a human conspiracy threatens to wipe the creatures, both good and bad, from the face of the earth forever.
For Borenstein, the California native is one of the only creative voices to have consistently worked on the franchise, having worked on GODZILLA (2014), KONG: SKULL ISLAND (2017) and GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS (2019) and now this film. His next film as writer and producer, WORTH, which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and will be released later this year, is based on Kenneth Feinberg's memoir of the same name. For television, Borenstein is the creator and showrunner of the upcoming UNTITLED LAKERS PROJECT for HBO, based on the book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s by Jeff Pearlman
BlackFilmandTV.com caught up with Borenstein as he talked about being part of this franchise from the beginning.
Were you always aware that you would be writing of the films?
Max Borenstein: What happened was, I came in initially, at the same time as Gareth Edwards to work with him to develop the script for Godzilla, the first of the franchise. It’s been a decade, I was younger writer than and eager to be breaking into the bigger blockbuster world, having written more dramatic stuff and smaller stuff. We reinvented the character a little bit for this franchise. I was able to stay on the movie. I got replaced one point, which is what happens to all young writers on big blockbusters. But then unfortunately, got brought back and was able to stick around during production and post and learn. I really became close to the creative team at Legendary on that film. During that time, the head of legendary came to me on his phone said he was the reason that they were doing this. He just loves Godzilla and loves King Kong.
He said, "Hey, I want to do a King Kong movie. Would you be interested in writing it and my goal is to make it be part of the same universe. Then the hope is that we're going to bring them together in however many movies. We're going to bring Godzilla and King Kong together in one film." I was like, "Okay, that sounds dope. Let’s figure it out." I wrote a couple drafts of Kong: Skull Island. Once he went off and did another television show, and then came back before production, and worked on that movie more. During that, we knew at least that like in the broad strokes, we were trying to get to Godzilla versus Kong. But it was in that that we came up with this idea of the Hollow Earth that became like the DNA of how this sort of shared universe would function. And the explanation for the Titans and why. How come these giant creatures could exist on shared planet with us and go unseen. So that became the genesis of a lot of the DNA is Godzilla versus Kong. I wrote the first draft of Godzilla to around the same time. Once Mike Dougherty came in to direct it, he took that and ran with it and did his own thing. Later in this process, and as they were a little farther along, developing Godzilla vs. Kong, because I’m part of the brain trust at this point, I was lucky to et called back in. They had a number of sort of scripts at that point. They had a lot of ideas, a lot of good ideas, but too many ideas and needed help figuring out how to assemble it all. And carve away the excess and get down to the core of what the movie should be. And that's what I did on this film.
Whose decision was it in determining who would come out as a winner?
Max Borenstein: Well, it wasn't my decision, although I think it couldn't have gone any other way. I don't want to be a winner. Godzilla is the King of the Monsters and Kong is king. They're iconic and legendary for a reason and beloved for different reasons and in different ways. They're very specific characters. Godzilla is a big mysterious force of nature, certainly, as we've devised them in this franchise. It’s unclear to me that you can ever be killed. He certainly never shouldn't be killed. He is the balancing agent. He is neither malevolent nor benevolent. But he may be if you're on the right side, and, and he's more mysterious than Kong. Kong is a is an outcast.
Kong is the only one of his time surviving. He’s classically in all iterations of Kong. He's this sort of misunderstood outsider, and a metaphor for that. But in this film, obviously, he becomes art and soul in a way. He becomes our protagonist. Godzilla is not the antagonist. He appears to be. He's the adversary for a time. But what we're rooting for is for both of these characters to realize what's going on underneath. And that there's a third thing. So if round one goes to Godzilla, round two goes to Kong by the time they get to round three, we're hoping that they're not going to kill one another, and that before it's too late, they're going to be able to team up and kick some ass together.
With these films, fans just want to see action. What it challenges putting something in for the human characters to do and have it make sense?
Max Borenstein: There's always that challenge. The beauty of this film is that character driven is the action and because we buy time. Based on the franchise, we've earned the right to make Godzilla and Kong the main characters of the film. Human characters are still valuable, but what they become is supporting characters in the movie stars or Godzilla and Kong. That's not always the case. In the first Godzilla that we did. for good reason. We were introducing that character to the world not to the real world. People knew who Godzilla was, although we were introducing our version. But to the story world, these characters human beings were first glimpsing and coming to understand what Godzilla was.
So to jump in from page one, with Godzilla, just being everywhere, and revealed felt like the wrong choice creatively. It certainly wasn't the avenue that Gareth and I decided to pursue in terms unveiling that mystery more slowly. But once we invested in that over the course of two films, and then with Kong, once we had done the same thing in Kong: Skull Island, where we met him, we came to understand him, and we had an adventure with him, we're ready for these two characters to actually lead the films. They’re the leading stars have the films, and the human characters are in service of them in the same way that the side characters in the Mission Impossible movie are in service of Ethan Hunt, either as villains or as allies.
How does it feel having written all of the films in this franchise?
Max Borenstein: It's amazing, honestly. I feel great pride and honored that the team at Legendary continued to trust me. It’s tracked my entire career as a writer, a professional writer, where I started. I was a kid who was eager to be involved and hang on. I got replaced by a much more experienced writer who got paid a lot more money, and then I got to come back in and do rewrites on his work; and then prove my worth, over time, to the point where on this film, I had the exact opposite experiences. I came in at a leader phase, and be the trusted vet who got to come in and help bring it home. It’s like being an athlete. I did my rookie season with this franchise, and I’m back again and be the Ronda or whatever. It's been a real kick to get me involved in all of this.