The pandemic changed a lot of the relationships that audiences have with the big screen. With many cinema-goers still afraid of going out, when it comes to choosing what movie to see at the local cinema, it usually has to have a justification for viewers to spend the time and money to go see it. The justification can mostly be summarized as big: big stories, with big characters, in big settings, and even more big things to follow down the road in that franchise. It's the reason why many local multiplexes are dominated by remakes, reboots, and franchises. In the eyes of many moviegoers, if they are going to see a movie on the big screen, the movie itself must be big to be justified to be seen on a big screen.
It's obvious that Marvel is the blueprint for today's cinema trends with stories spanning over a decade with an eventual payoff down the road as long as they've been there for the previous installments. Now Marvel has released the likes of Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home, and they are the movies that movie-goers are looking to see on the big screen. It's been such a success for Disney and Marvel that most companies are trying to create their own hand at the 'cinematic universe.' This usually has backfired with most companies going too big too quickly throwing development out the massive windows. Mostly because instead of taking lessons from Marvel about how they created their universe, they only see the success of the big payoff in the end and immediately want to get there without the years taken to earn those moments.
Patience seems to have been the key and if one other company has also done that, it is Legendary Pictures with their 'Monsterverse.' In 2010 Legendary Pictures got the rights for the King of the Monsters, Godzilla, from Toho. For many fans, the deal to bring Godzilla back to America was bringing eerie flashbacks to another Kaiju-sized disaster from another Western attempt at the famous not-so-fire-breathing monster, Roland Emmerich's 1998 Godzilla. But amid the trend of superhero origin stories, Legendary Pictures would make their own origin story for Godzilla, this time making the monster closer to a hero than the path of nuclear destruction he was originally created as. He is now the force of nature he once was as well as the one to keep the balance among the other teased Kaiju.
But contrary to what other studios had done, only a Godzilla reboot was in the works at the time with the rights of King Kong coming a year after Godzilla's 2014 release and the rights to Rodan, Mothra, and King Ghidorah coming in 2014, once again from Toho. The goal wasn't just to make a movie that would lead to further installments, it was also to create a good Godzilla movie that would satisfy audiences to make them keep coming to more installments. It was when the studio saw the success of Godzilla, that they began the pry for the rights of the Kaiju that would eventually make up the complete Monsterverse that would grow in sequels Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs Kong.
But even then, Legendary Pictures didn't bombard local theaters with monster movie after monster movie contrary to shoving mutliple movies inside a year. The average time span between Monsterverse installments is two years, creating some breathing room and time for audiences to enjoy to current installments and to slowly build anticipation for the next. This works particularly well when trying to build excitement for the ever-so escalating scale of the movies. But much like Marvel is now doing, Legendary is once again taking the correct lessons from them and growing their franchise in a patient and expansive way with a show.
It was announced in January of this year that Legendary would be bringing the Monsterverse to Apple TV+. Although there isn't much known about the show at this moment, only that the synopsis says that it takes place after the events of the 2014 Godzilla movie. But from what has been seen from the past two installments alone, it is safe to say that more of Monarch and Kaijus are in store with the slowly but gradually building universe. Although Legendary Pictures has used the most popular Godzilla foes already, there is still a huge line-up of Godzilla villains that have not been used like Gigan and Destroyah, but Legendary has also shown that they are completely open to creating monsters of their own for the Monsterverse.
But only time will tell who or what Legendary pictures can include in their Monsterverse. But with the line-up so far, it seems they will continue to take their time which seems to be for the best. Whoever Legendary can get, it is safe to say they "let them fight."