Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire's Kaiju Partnership Was Inspired By Lethal Weapon

While they may not have gotten along at the start of Godzilla Vs. Kong, the two biggest names in the Kaiju business did eventually manage to reach a mutual understanding after they teamed up to stop Mecha-Godzilla. In Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, the titans now have a new status quo and have reached a truce, an idea that director Adam Wingard says was inspired by one of the best buddy-cop partnerships of the '80s and '90s, Lethal Weapon.

While you probably won't be hearing Godzilla roar about how he's too old for this crap, Wingard did tease that the cult film series starring Danny Glover and Mel Gibson was a big influence on New Empire's story.

"There's a bit of a truce--Godzilla's in control of the surface world and Kong is down in Hollow Earth," Wingard explained to Empire. "It wasn’t, 'Okay, give me a call when something goes wrong, Kong. And I, Godzilla, will rush to the rescue!' My influences are always embedded with the '80s, and the '80s were prime for [that] storyline."

That new threat now has a name, as Kong and Godzilla will face off against the simian villain Skar King. As Wingard explained, don't expect the titanic tag team to operate too smoothly at first, as due to the language barrier, there will be a lot of crossed wires. "There's a lot of misunderstanding--the way that the monsters communicate isn't straightforward," Wingard said.

The film will also see the two stars evolve for the massive fight ahead of them, as Wingard teased Godzilla's new and pinker powerup as "his version of a training routine" and inspired by classic Shaw Brothers martial arts movies. "You're gonna see lots of different versions of Godzilla in this movie," Wingard added. Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire will hit theaters on March 29.