Sci-Fi Monster Mash That Saved A Franchise Finally Streaming On Netflix Jonathan Klotz Wed, December 3, 2025 at 6:02 PM UTC 4 min read Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways No one ever expected 2014’s Godzilla, which famously features the gigantic monster brawls in the background, to lead to a rejuvenated American-centric Godzilla franchise. Four movies and one television series later, that’s what happened, but it was only because of the sequel, 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Finally, Western audiences could see Godzilla go toe-to-toe with other gigantic kaiju as the film’s highlight. The human characters took a backseat, and the result was a movie so good that there’s another movie and another season of television on the way. Gigantic Monsters First, Humans Second You wouldn’t think it would be so hard for Warner Bros to bash mega-monsters together for 2 hours and call it a film. Godzilla : King of the Monsters has a plot that boils down to the gigantic lizard taking on the massive Monster Zero, King Ghidorah, to assert dominance as the King of the Monsters and, as a side benefit, prevent humanity from going extinct. Honestly, that’s all you have to know about the plot. Rodan shows up, Mothra’s there, and every single dollar spent on special effects is visible on screen. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The human characters feel secondary to the, pun fully intended, big picture, which is even more impressive given the cast includes Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, and Stranger Things breakout star Millie Bobbie Brown as a dysfunctional family on the cutting edge of kaiju research. David Straithern and Ken Watanabe return from the previous film, joined this time by another titan of the stage, adding some class to a monster movie, Game of Thrones ‘ Charles Dance as the human villain, an eco-terrorist who wants to use the kaiju to restore the planet. Godzilla: King of the Monsters wisely uses the stellar cast to expand the world and lay the groundwork for even more movies featuring Monarch, the Titan-studying organization at the center of the storm. Critics Can’t Appreciate Fun At the time, Godzilla: King of the Monsters was bashed by critics for being boring, with a significant number of Rotten Tomatoes reviewers saying it lacked a plot. At 42 percent rotten, it’s clear the critics preferred 2014’s Gareth Edwards-directed film. Thankfully, this is one of those times where critics don’t matter because audiences made the film into a blockbuster with an 83 percent audience approval rating and, more importantly, a worldwide box office of $380 million. Reportedly, the film’s budget was $200 million before marketing costs, which means $380 million shouldn’t be anything to get excited about, much less decide to go all in with multiple sequels and a television series, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. The box office doesn’t take into account merchandise sales, Blu-Ray sales, and how every time Warner Bros. licenses the film out to a streaming service, it becomes an instant hit. The post-credits scene in Godzilla: King of the Monsters deserves to be up there with Samuel L. Jackson showing up as Nick Fury in Iron Man. Gigantic titans are on their way to Skull Island, ancient cave paintings show Godzilla battling gigantic apes, and the film everyone’s been waiting decades to see, Godzilla vs. Kong, hit theaters in 2021 and again, it was a smash hit, proving that the American Godzilla franchise was here to stay. The Rise Of Godzilla Now that Stranger Things is coming to an end, Millie Bobbie Brown can pivot full-time into movies. Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs. Kong are her only non-streaming films. Maybe she can finally escape Netflix jail, though her next movie is Enola Holmes 3, so it won’t be for a while yet, which is a shame, as she helped make Madison Russell into an interesting character instead of an annoying human side character distracting from the real reason everyone wants to see a Godzilla movie. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The next film in the franchise, Godzilla x Kong: Supernova , is expected to arrive in 2027, with a Monarch: Legacy of Monsters prequel series also in the works, centering on Wyatt Russell as the founder of the Titan-research organization. On the other side of the Pacific, Toho Studios is working on a sequel to Godzilla Minus One , announced as Godzilla Minus Zero for release later in 2026. That’s a lot of Godzilla on the way for fans, and all it took to happen was for Hollywood to finally deliver on the promise of gigantic monsters battling it out on the big screen, which sounds like a simple concept, yet Godzilla: King of the Monsters was the first time they got it right. Godzilla: King of the Monsters is now streaming on Netflix. Advertisement Source: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/movies/articles/sci-fi-monster-mash-saved-180225770.html