To date, there have been five films and one TV series in the MonsterVerse series, a high-profile American reinterpretation of Toho's long-running Godzilla series. The series began in 2014 with Gareth Edwards' "Godzilla," and that first film was a massive hit, but in terms of quality, the Monsterverse overall has been a mixed bag at best. Jordan Vogt-Roberts' "Kong: Skull Island" was a decent blockbuster, but the first and third films in the series — the third being "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" — lacked a sense of whimsy and fun, qualities vital to the Toho Godzilla films of the '60s and '70s.

It wouldn't be until Adam Wingard directed "Godzilla vs. Kong" in 2021 that the code would be cracked. Edwards had previously tried to make Godzilla into something smoky and stern, capturing the tone of a post-9/11 bum-out actioner with none of the actual thematic heft. Wingard knew that a...