Kurt Russell joins son Wyatt in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters as two more sign on
As Apple TV+'s new Monsterverse series heads into early production with Wyatt Russell leading, an MCU star and two more actors have joined the cast, per industry reports.
If you thought the Monsterverse had already roped in half of Hollywood, well, apparently not. Apple TV+ are going again, and this fresh Godzilla spin-off series has just bulked up its cast with one busy Marvel face and two more names who'll ring a few bells for long-time TV viewers.
Major New Recruits
Right, who's in? Ralph Ineson — yes, the bloke from Fantastic Four: First Steps and, let's be honest, a few dozen other things — has now joined the show. So have Corey Stoll (who Marvel fans will have clocked as Ant-Man's least subtle villain) and Nyasha Hatendi, who you'll know if your tastes run to The Seven Dials or, one for the sci-fi heads, Replicas.
Here's where everyone now stands in the main cast:
- Wyatt Russell — back as Young Lee Shaw, lead; if you saw Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, it's that character again, only even earlier in his career, mucking about with monsters and superpowers on behalf of the US in the Cold War era
- Millie Brady
- Pilou Asbæk
- Ralph Ineson
- Corey Stoll
- Nyasha Hatendi
Ineson has properly racked up the genre projects by now — Harry Potter, The First Omen, plus the gothic-leaning new Nosferatu for good measure. Stoll, after cropping up in House of Cards, Billions, and the Ant-Man films, has a talent for playing men with plans that rarely work out. Hatendi's been all over the map, from period pieces to speculative fiction, so frankly, unleashing kaiju can't faze him.
From 2014 to Supernova
Now, about this Monsterverse. It kicked off with Godzilla in 2014, Kong: Skull Island in 2017, ramped up to Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), then the impressively loud Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire in 2024. The franchise isn't slowing either, with Godzilla x Kong: Supernova set to crash cinemas in 2027.
The new untitled series digs into how humanity's getting on in a world that, let's be honest, is a bit preoccupied with titans flattening cities. The specific plot here: in 1984, a young Lee Shaw gets sent on a covert mission behind the old Iron Curtain, aiming to stop the Soviets from unleashing a new titan nasty enough to flatten the US and change the course of the Cold War. Even for this universe, it's a bit arch.
Wyatt Russell, besides the action, is also swinging an executive producer credit. He's joined by Joby Harold (showrunner), Tory Tunnell, Chris Black, and a longer list that includes Kyle Bradstreet, Alex Boden, Dillard, Andy Goddard, James Skotchdopole, plus Hiro Matsuoka and Takemasa Arita — so, for better or worse, exactly the sort of crowd you'd expect steering a streaming monsters project. Harold and Tunnell apparently have more Monsterverse telly plans with Apple, but there's no confirmed release date for this one yet.