'Kong: Skull Island' the start of a new shared universe of movie monsters

It seems like everyone wants to have the same success as Marvel Universe and their shared universe with "The Avengers." The Universal Monsters tried it with "Wolfman" and "Dracula Untold" and still want to get it going with their new movie "The Mummy." DC Comics and Warner Bros. are working on a huge one as well. Now, it seems like Warner Bros. is trying it twice, as they are teaming with Universal to make "Kong: Skull Island" the lead-in to a giant monster shared universe which will include the already introduced Godzilla.

King Kong vs. Godzilla

IIn "Dracula: Untold," there was an attempt to add a small hint of more to come at the end when they introduced the concept of The Mummy. Similarly, "Godzilla" did the same thing by introducing a corporation called Monarch, which played a small role in "Godzilla" but was really expanded on in "Kong: Skull Island." Basically, it looks like Monarch will be to the monster universe what S.H.I.E.L.D. is to the Marvel Universe.

Monster team-ups in the past

What makes this really amusing is that both the Universal Monsters and the Godzilla movie universe did this successfully long before Marvel Comics even existed at all.

Fans of classic horror movies know well that Dracula, The Wolfman, Frankenstein's Monster, and The Mummy all co-existed in a shared movie universe in the 1930's and '40s. The last of the team-up movies even included Abbott and Costello. Then, in the '60s, Hammer Films teamed up Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster again. This is nothing new. Godzilla started out as a monster in his own movie before battling everyone from Mothra to King Kong in later movies. Once again, this has been done before.

King Kong starting the shared universe

"Godzilla" will be part of this entire shared universe but most people will probably remember "Kong: Skull Island" as where it all starts. The question is what will be next for Universal and Warner Bros.

Popular monsters like Mothra will almost surely appear in what will be known as the MonsterVerse. It is a catchy title but proves that they knew what they were planning ahead of time. The next Godzilla movie comes out in 2019 and then 2020 is when the big battle comes as that is when "Godzilla vs. Kong" is scheduled to hit theaters.