It must be an infuriating task to be part of the marketing team for a big budget blockbuster, with the production going out of its way to avoid leaks, spoilers and set photos, only for the line of tie-in merchandise to come along and potentially give away all of the major secrets on the back of a cardboard box.
After being delayed numerous times, Godzilla vs. Kong is still shrouded in some level of mystery, but that hasn’t stopped leaked images of the various toy lines hinting at what’s to come in the latest installment of Legendary’s MonsterVerse. Previous leaks hinted at Kong wielding a new weapon and the introduction of some new kaiju for the iconic title duo to contend with, and now the latest reveal has seemingly confirmed the name of one of the new faces.
Previous images had a snake-like kaiju set to debut in Godzilla vs. Kong down as being called Nozuki, but now it appears that it will be going by the much more on-the-nose Warbat instead and its appearance has been updated, too. The name change, in particular, is reportedly due to someone at the studio realizing that the original one was a little too similar to Godzuki, who was introduced in the long-forgotten 1970s animated series as the King of the Monsters’ comic relief nephew.
That’s definitely a deep cut from the mythology that most causal audiences won’t be aware of, but it apparently caused enough concern at the studio for them to change the name of Godzilla vs. Kong‘s serpentine Titan to something a little more straightforward.
Regardless of how heavily the freshly-renamed Warbat factors into the plot, it would be safe to assume that most people will be buying tickets solely on the promise of seeing two of cinema’s most iconic monsters battle it out on the biggest screen possible, and not for the supporting cast of either human or kaiju characters that surround them.