Deadline announced that Dan Stevens has been cast in the upcoming sequel to Godzilla vs. Kong. Production on the highly anticipated sequel is set to begin this summer in Australia. Dan Stevens has been cast in the lead, with Adam Wingard returning to direct. No information on the plot is available.
Godzilla vs. Kong saw the two iconic creatures duke it out after humans recruit Kong to help retrieve a power source to develop a weapon to stop Godzilla’s mysterious rampages. However, the two set their differences aside to team up against Mechagodzilla, a threat developed by a corporation.
Godzilla vs. Kong is a sequel to 2017’s Kong: Skull Island and 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Alexander Skarsgard (True Blood) stars alongside Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Shun Oguri, Eiza Bonzalez, Julian Dennisan, Lance Reddick, Kyle Chandler, and Demian Bichir.
The first Godzilla vs. Kong movie is credited with bringing audiences back into theaters during Covid. Godzilla vs. Kong was the second film released during the Covid era to earn over $100 million at the domestic box office and a total of about $468 million worldwide. Deadline reports that the box office numbers were so impressive that Godzilla vs. Kong earned a simultaneous release on HBO Max.
Stevens played the Beast to Emma Watson’s Belle in the 2017 live-action version of Beauty and the Beast. He previously worked with Wingard on the critically-acclaimed 2014 thriller The Guest. According to Deadline, “The film earned both Stevens and Wingard some of the best reviews of their careers, while also having major studios taking notice of the potential of both Stevens and Wingard in their future film slates.”
Stevens’ most recent role was in Gaslit, a Starz limited series about the Watergate scandal, which stars Julia Roberts and Sean Penn. Stevens plays Nixon White House Counsel John Dean. Critics recently praised Stevens’ German-language performance in 2021’s I’m Your Man, Maria Schrader’s science fiction romance. He also starred in FX’s X-Men series, Legion, lent his voice to HBO Max’s The Prince, and also played Matthew Crawley on Downton Abbey.
Wingard’s previous projects include 2016’s Blair Witch and 2017’s Death Note. According to Moviefone, he’s currently developing a new version of the Nicholas Cage-John Travolta ‘90s action film Face/Off and a movie based on the popular ‘80s cartoon, Thundercats.