Making of ‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’: Roundtable with 5 Emmy contenders

When “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” co-creators Chris Black and Matt Fraction sat down four years ago to develop a television series set within the Legendary Pictures MonsterVerse franchise where Godzilla and Kong rule, they knew one thing for certain.

“We were all excited and honored to be able to play in that universe – to be invited to be a part of it – but we also knew we couldn’t make a sustaining television show that was just about monsters,” Black tells Gold Derby in an exclusive video interview as part of our Making of “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” roundtable panel. “As appealing as those characters are, to try and do 10 hours of television or multiple seasons at the level of spectacle that the feature films achieve, was unsustainable. So we had to create a show about a group of people in a world where monsters are real, and tell the story from their perspective.”

The result is “Monarch,” the acclaimed drama series that tracks not just the origins of the Monarch organization – the shadowy government group that operates across multiple feature films, including 2014’s “Godzilla,” 2017’s “Kong: Skull Island,” and this year’s hit film “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” – but the fractured Randa family that started it all.

“We knew that we needed to be taken into the world through the eyes of a group of people that an audience was hopefully going to invest in, and want to follow them on that journey,” Black says.

It helps that “Monarch” loaded its cast with rising stars and one screen legend. The series is set in two timelines – with the beginnings of Monarch unfolding in the 1950s through the relationship between Bill Randa (played in “Kong: Skull Island” by John Goodman and appearing in “Monarch” as a younger man played by Anders Holm), Kieko Miura (Mari Yamamoto), and Col. Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell). In the show’s present timeline – which is technically the past, however, in the MonsterVerse, as it takes place just after the events of 2014’s “Godzilla” – Bill’s granddaughter, Cate (Anna Sawai), and her half-brother, Kentaro (Ren Watabe), try to untangle the mystery of their father’s disappearance with help from an elder Shaw, now in his 90s and played by Kurt Russell, Wyatt’s father. (The gap between Shaw’s age and appearance is a season-long mystery that pays off in the show’s emotional season finale.) “Monarch” marks the first time the Russells appeared together in a significant capacity in the same project.

“I’d heard that they wanted to work together and that they did not want to play a father and son,” casting director Ronna Kress explains of casting the Russells. “And so when I started pitching Kurt for the part of Shaw, I just threw it out there. I was like, ‘Well, why don’t we get both of them?��”

Kress says getting the Russells aboard was a “long and complicated” process, but the effort paid off in the performances.

“They were coordinating and they were very aware that they were playing the same character – that what Lee Shaw was doing as a young man would be the formative experience of what Lee Shaw as an older man would have gone through,” Black explains. “They would talk to each other about it, they would rehearse scenes together, they would watch each other’s performances on the monitor – they were very dedicated to this idea. It’s interesting because they’re both very talented actors, but they have very different styles. So they needed to reconcile that in terms of how Lee evolved. They took it really seriously.”

For fans of the MonsterVerse, “Monarch” is a virtual feast of callbacks and references. The show takes place in the aftermath of G-Day, the initial Godzilla attack that leveled San Francisco in the 2014 film by Gareth Edwards. That incident features prominently in the backstory for Cate and is recreated from a new vantage point for the show.

“If you’re going to have seven shots of Godzilla destroying a bridge, and that needs to be a core fundamental character turn for Cate – those seven shots need to be punchy, they need to be clear in the storytelling, they need to give that subjective terror and advance the character in some way,” says visual effects supervisor Sean Konrad, who worked on “Godzilla” and “Godzilla: King of the Monsters.” “In a feature film, the visual effects can sometimes feel like you’re creating these giant action VFX pieces, and then hold on to it. On ‘Monarch,’ we’re trying to service that story fundamentally and make sure the characters still feel central to it all.”

The visual effects as well as the impressive sound design from fellow panelist Benjamin L. Cook, a four-time Emmy Award winner give “Monarch” a heft and authority that rivals anything on the big screen. Just ask “Monarch” composer Leopold Ross.

“I just went to see ‘Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire’ and I would say that our visuals are definitely on par with that,” Ross says before praising his fellow collaborator. “It’s really hats off to you, Sean. I think that’s incredible.”

The mutual admiration society also extends to Ross, whose robust score enhances the emotional heft of the show’s writing and plotting. “I have gotten so many compliments about the score,” Black says. “I get more compliments about the music and the show than I do about the writing.”

Kidding aside, the critical and viewership success of “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” means fans will get more episodes in the future. Apple renewed “Monarch” for Season 2 earlier this year and the streamer has plans to develop further spinoffs. That’s good news for Black.

“We joke in some ways that we’ve been a victim of our own success. People responded positively to the show, Apple was very happy with the show and it did well for them. So now, I think there are a lot more eyes on the show creatively. It’s got to be bigger, it’s got to be better, you’ve got to raise the high bar you set from Season 1,” Black says. “So everyone in the whole creative team is definitely feeling that pressure. But I think we are excited. We’re eager to work with that cast again to take those characters to a new level, to do more with the creatures of the MonsterVerse – bring in new creatures that people haven’t seen in our universe before and hopefully keep doing what worked and what people embraced about the show. But we also want to surprise them with some new things. I’m looking forward to a couple more years.”