Some Easter eggs are put front-and-centre for fans: they can pop up via an on-the-nose dialogue reference or be heavily signposted by the framing of a shot. Others are so obscure you have to have an IMDb degree to spot them.
This, dear friends, is a classic example of the latter.
Before we get to it, some backstory. Remember when director Michael Dougherty said King of the Monsters would bring back a Kong: Skull Island character?
Now, because Skull Island was set in 1973, that meant we would be seeing an older version of an established character, and everyone assumed Charles Dance would be the logical choice.
Fans decided Dance was playing Tom Hiddleston’s Captain James Conrad (both military men, both British, the age difference is about right), and everyone went on with their lives.
Until it was revealed that Dance was playing the villainous Alan Jonah and everyone lost their minds trying to work out who the crossover character was.
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Okay, so maybe the search for the character wasn’t quite that dramatic, but still, it was a bit baffling to announce a crossover and then, not really do anything with it. It’s like saying Ant-Man’s going to be in Spider-Man: Far From Home, and then having him be an extra in a crowd scene.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We should let you know who we’re actually talking about. Yes, the crossover character was – drum-roll – Corey Hawkins' Dr Houston Brooks.
To be fair, some people guessed Brooks would be the returner as he worked for Monarch, which is basically the SHIELD of this MonsterVerse. But what they couldn’t possibly guess was how little the film would do with him.
We only actually know Joe Morton plays the character because we paid attention to the credits. You certainly wouldn’t know it from the movie, which doesn’t name him, and throws him away in a cameo that’s eerily reminiscent of his Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice appearance.
There, he saw the birth of post-Mother Box Cyborg. Here he sees the birth of post-cocoon Mothra. He has a very similar expression on his face for both moments.
Dr Brooks' Hollow Earth theory is referenced later in the movie, when Dr Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) brings up Brooks' ideas that monsters live in deep, underground caverns that connect different regions of the planet.
The theory was the driving force behind Kong: Skull Island’s plot, with the scientific team at the centre of the narrative brought to Kong’s home to investigate a possible entry point for monsters from the underground lair to the surface world. And an entry point they found.
Cut to over 30 years later and Dr Brooks is still around, hanging out with big beasts aplenty. Though, with the actor not yet announced for Godzilla Vs Kong, this might be the last time we see him.
We also might not see Godzilla Vs Kong as soon as we were hoping. According to Warner Bros boss Toby Emmerich, Godzilla Vs Kong “will deliver for fans in the way they were looking for,” in King Of The Monsters. “It might come out later in the year, so we can deliver an A+ movie.”
We're not sure if fan-pleasing was King Of The Monsters' main problem. We’re also not sure how the film ‘will deliver’ what fans didn’t get in King Of The Monsters (which has been praised for containing the stuff fans wanted to see in Gareth Edwards’ movie).
Could it mean we'll get a crossover character that says more than two words, and does something to justify their inclusion? That would be nice, wouldn’t it?
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Freelancer writer
Sam is an entertainment writer with NCTJ accreditation and a twenty-year career as a film journalist.
Starting out as a staff writer at Total Film, moving up to Deputy Online Editor, Sam was responsible for Total Film’s YouTube channel, where he revolutionised the magazine’s approach to video junkets, creating influential formats that spread to other outlets.
He’s interviewed a wide range of film icons, including directors such as David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Ridley Scott, Michael Bay and Sam Raimi, as well as actors such as Meryl Streep, Nic Cage, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Anne Hathaway, Margot Robbie, Natalie Portman, Kermit the Frog, all of the Avengers and many more.
Sam has also interviewed several comic creators, including Stan Lee, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and he has a zombie cameo in The Walking Dead comic.
In 2014, Sam went freelance, working directly for film studios including Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox and Disney, as well as covering red carpet events for film marketing company PMA Productions.
Sam is the co-host, producer and editor of the Arrow Video podcast, which has seen year-on-year growth since its creation in 2017, gaining over half a million listens in that time.
His byline has appeared in outlets such as Yahoo, MTV, Dazed, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Good Housekeeping among others.
In 2012, Sam made it to the final of the Leicester Square Theatre New Comedian of the Year competition, and went on to become a filmmaker himself, directing three features that have all played major festivals, and secured distribution – starring in two of them.
Jim Carrey once mistook Sam for Johnny Cash, and John Carpenter told him to ‘Keep up the good work.’ He promises to try his best.
