Memoirs of a Geisha and House of the Flying Daggers actress Zhang Ziyi has signed on for what is reportedly a major franchise role in Warner Bros. and Legendary’s MonsterVerse, a suitably immense body of films that already encompasses Godzilla and this year’s Kong: Skull Island.
Per Variety, Ziyi will make her first appearance in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, where she’ll play a high-ranking Monarch employee. If that shady organization rings a bell, it should; it’s essentially the glue that binds the MonsterVerse together, and with Skull Island in particular, we’ve seen the extraordinary lengths Monarch is willing to go in order to properly monitor and document these ancient alpha predators in their natural habitat.
Further character details weren’t disclosed at this time; all we know is that Zhang Ziyi will likely be presiding over Sally Hawkins and Ken Watanabe, two returnees who first bore witness to Gojira emerging from the depths of the Pacific in 2014. Not unlike Gareth Edwards’ original pic, King of the Monsters is said to revolve around a family unit played by Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, and Millie Bobby Brown, who impressed just about everyone with her nuanced performance in Netflix’s Stranger Things. Other cast members include former Game of Thrones actor Charles Dance, Bradley Whitford, Anthony Ramos (Hamilton), O’Shea Jackson Jr., Thomas Middleditch and Aisha Hinds. And though he initially signed on to work on the script, we understand Krampus helmer Michael Dougherty is behind the lens, working from a screenplay he co-wrote with Zach Shields.
Set several years after Gareth Edwards’ franchise-starter, Godzilla: King of the Monsters will roar to life on March 22nd, 2019. Doing good on Skull Island‘s post-credits stinger, Michael Dougherty’s monstrous sequel is set to pit Gojira against the likes of Rodan, Mothra, and King Ghidorah, which ought to stand him in good stead ahead of that all-important clash in 2020’s Godzilla Vs. Kong. Adam Wingard of The Guest and Death Note will be orchestrating that titanic crossover from behind the lens.
