Apple TV and Legendary are in early talks for a third season of the Godzilla spinoff that would swap out the showrunner, the writers' room and even the Titans on screen.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters isn't dead, but if it comes back, it won't look like the show you've been watching.
Apple TV and Legendary Television are in talks for a third season, according to Variety, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter, all of whom published within minutes of each other on Wednesday. The twist: showrunner Chris Black, who co-created the series with Matt Fraction and ran Season 2, is reportedly being replaced. Sources told Variety that multiple people have already been approached about taking over as showrunner, and that an entirely new writers' room would come with them.
The bigger change might be on screen. Deadline and THR both report that Season 3 would introduce new Titans from Legendary's Monsterverse, the shared universe that includes Godzilla, King Kong and whatever else Toho and Legendary decide to unleash next. What nobody's confirming yet is whether the human cast survives the jump. Anna Sawai, Kiersey Clemons, Ren Watabe, Mari Yamamoto, Anders Holm, Joe Tippett and the Russells, Wyatt and Kurt, who play the same character, Lee Shaw, at different points in his life, have carried the show across two seasons and two timelines. THR says their fates remain unsettled. Variety puts it more bluntly: no word yet on whether anyone from Seasons 1 and 2 carries over at all.
This isn't a show that's struggled to get oxygen. Season 1 landed in 2023, Season 2 arrived this February and wrapped its run on May 1, only six months before this renewal chatter started, per Deadline. A full creative reset this soon after a season ends is unusual, and nobody's offering a reason for it on the record.
The Shaw spinoff keeps moving
Whatever happens with Season 3, it won't touch the untitled prequel series built around a young Colonel Lee Shaw, still played by Wyatt Russell. That show is set in 1984 and follows Shaw trying to stop the Soviets from unleashing a new Titan of their own, a plot point only Variety's report spells out. Joby Harold runs that one through his and Tory Tunnell's Safehouse Pictures banner, with JD Dillard directing. The cast around Russell includes Millie Brady, Pilou Asbaek, Corey Stoll, Ralph Ineson, Nyasha Hatendi, Connie Nielsen and Stana Katic, a roster big enough that Legendary clearly isn't treating this as a side project.
Toho's Hiro Matsuoka and Takemasa Arita, who hold the Godzilla rights, executive produce across both shows, which tells you Legendary isn't making any of this up on its own. The Monsterverse keeps expanding regardless: Godzilla vs. Kong: Supernova is still on the calendar for 2027, per THR.
For now Season 3 is a negotiation, not a greenlight. Apple hasn't confirmed anything officially, and until a showrunner actually signs, the question of which familiar faces, if any, make the cut stays open.
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