As Legendary expands its “Godzilla” and “King Kong” universe, the banner looks to have found a friendly face to steer the ship for the sequel to 2014’s “Godzilla.”

Sources tell Variety that Michael Dougherty and Zach Shields, who wrote “Krampus” for Legendary, are on board to pen the script for the next installment in the “Godzilla” franchise.

Sources have also indicated Legendary might be preparing to set up a writers room to help create the upcoming Godzilla-King Kong universe the company has planned since sending the distribution rights for “Kong: Skull Island” back to Warner Bros. after originally setting pic up at Universal.

Alex Garcia will oversee the project for Legendary.

In October 2015, Legendary and Warner Bros. made a joint announcement that all future “King Kong” and “Godzilla” films would be developed by Legendary and distributed by Warner Bros. starting with “Kong: Skull Island” next March. Legendary currently holds a distribution deal with Universal but in order to re-team “Godzilla” and “King Kong,” Legendary decided to send the rights back over to Warner Bros. in order to create this new “ecosystem” of giant super-species, both classic and new, as described in its original joint statement.

As of now, it looks as if Dougherty and Shields will just pen the script “Godzilla 2,” but this draft could be the starting point for a possible writers room.

“Godzilla 2” is currently dated for Mar. 22, 2019 with “Godzilla vs. Kong” movie for May 29, 2020.

Dougherty has strong ties to Legendary, having written and directed “Trick ‘r Treat”, one of Legendary’s first productions that has become a cult hit and horror perennial. He then teamed with Shields on the recent Christmas horror pic “Krampus,” which Dougherty directed and co-wrote with Shields.

Dougherty also co-wrote “X2” and “Superman Returns.”

Dougherty is repped by WME and Circle Confusion and Shields is repped by WME and LBI Entertainment.

Just yesterday it was announced that Krampus director Michael Dougherty and co-writer Zach Shields are re-teaming with Legendary Pictures to pen the screenplay for Godzilla 2, the follow-up to Gareth Edwards’ blockbuster monster flick. We’ve known for some time that Edwards isn’t returning to helm the sequel, and with the Rogue One director out of the picture, we’ve been curious to see who might take his place. As it turns out, Dougherty isn’t just writing Godzilla 2 — he’s also directing it.

Sources close to production have revealed that Dougherty is directing Godzilla 2, which will lead up to the previously reported King Kong and Godzilla crossover film. Kong: Skull Island hits theaters next March, followed by the Godzilla sequel in 2019 and Godzilla vs. Kong in 2020. Execs at Legendary are said to be quite fond of the Krampus director, who also helmed the 2007 cult horror favorite Trick ’r Treat and worked on screenplays for Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns and X2.

We were unable to confirm if Dougherty and Shields will use any of Gareth Edwards’ original ideas for Godzilla 2, which would have featured Mechagodzilla — a monster that first appeared in the 1974 film Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Initially introduced as an extraterrestrial foe, Mechagodzilla was later depicted as a weapon created by man to defend Japan from the legendary lizard.

As Variety noted in their own report, Dougherty and Shields might also be the first step toward Legendary’s creation of a new writers room to handle their shared monster universe — a scenario that’s not unlikely given that similar teams have been established for the Transformers franchise and Universal’s own upcoming monster movie universe.


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