Monsterverse Timeline: Every Film and Monarch Season in Story Order

The Monsterverse timeline begins with a 1944 dogfight on Skull Island in Kong: Skull Island (2017) and a 1954 nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in Godzilla (2014). In Kong: Skull Island (2017), directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, a US pilot and a Japanese pilot crash on a South Pacific island in 1944 and fight each other until a giant ape appears. In Godzilla (2014), directed by Gareth Edwards, the 1954 test is secretly an attempt to kill a giant creature, and that attempt leads to the founding of the secret organization Monarch.

These are the earliest dated events, not the earliest full story, and the scenes are short but explain a great deal. Monarch exists because of the 1954 test, and Kong was already living on his island decades before anyone surveyed it. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters also returns to the 1950s in its own flashbacks, so that decade is covered by both the films and the series.

Kong: Skull Island (2017) is set in 1973 and is the earliest full story on the Monsterverse timeline. It comes first in the chronological order even though it was the second film released. Bill Randa, a Monarch official, gets funding to survey a newly found island and hires an Army helicopter unit under Lt. Col. Preston Packard, along with tracker James Conrad and photographer Mason Weaver. The team drops seismic charges to test a theory about a hollow Earth, and Kong answers by smashing the helicopters and scattering the survivors.

The group then meets the native Iwi and Hank Marlow, a pilot who has been stranded there for nearly 30 years. Marlow explains that Kong guards the island from the Skullcrawlers, reptilian predators that the bombing has woken up. Packard's revenge plan ends when a giant Skullcrawler rises from a lake, Kong kills Packard, and the ape finishes the monster with human help.

A scene after the credits has Houston Brooks and San Lin bring Conrad and Weaver into Monarch, then shows images of Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra and Ghidorah. Bill Randa is also the bridge to the series, because John Goodman played him here and returns as the older Randa in Monarch season 1. The full breakdown is on the kong skull island page, and the ape himself is covered on kong monsterverse.

Godzilla (2014) covers two periods, a 1999 disaster at the Janjira nuclear plant in Japan and the main story fifteen years later, and its main story is set in 2014, after Kong: Skull Island (2017). In 1999 the plant collapses and Sandra Brody dies. Her husband Joe Brody refuses to accept the official explanation, and in 2014 he drags their son Ford Brody, a naval bomb disposal officer, back into the quarantine zone, where they find a giant cocoon feeding on the plant's reactors.

The creature inside hatches as a winged MUTO and escapes. Ishiro Serizawa and Dr. Vivienne Graham of Monarch explain that an ancient predator called Godzilla exists and that the MUTOs are his natural prey. A second, larger female MUTO appears, and the creatures wreck Hawaii and Las Vegas on their way toward each other. The military plans to lure them out to sea and destroy them with nuclear warheads, but the female MUTO eats most of them.

The climax is set in San Francisco, where Ford joins a strike team that parachutes in to disarm the last warhead. He takes it out into the bay, Godzilla kills both MUTOs, and the media call him the King of the Monsters. See godzilla 2014 for the full film page and godzilla monsterverse for the character.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 1 is set in 2014 to 2015, after the San Francisco battle in Godzilla (2014), with flashbacks to the 1950s. It is a live-action Apple TV+ series from Legendary Entertainment, co-created by Chris Black and Matt Fraction, and it premiered on November 17, 2023 with ten episodes. The story follows the siblings Cate Randa (Anna Sawai) and Kentaro (Ren Watabe), whose father's secrets lead them to Monarch and to the soldier Lee Shaw, played by Kurt Russell, with Wyatt Russell as the young Lee Shaw.

The cast also includes Kiersey Clemons as May Olowe-Hewitt and Mari Yamamoto as Keiko Miura. Anders Holm plays the younger Bill Randa and John Goodman plays the older version, which ties the show to Kong: Skull Island (2017). Toho, which owns Godzilla, licensed the character to Legendary for the series, and the show sits in the same continuity as the films. For the series on its own, see monarch legacy of monsters.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 2 sits in 2017 on the Monsterverse timeline, which puts it after season 1 (2014 to 2015) and makes it the later of the show's two entries here. Wikipedia and Apple's season description both give that year. Its flashbacks reach 1982, the 1960s and the 1950s, so the season touches the same decade as the Bikini Atoll test in Godzilla (2014).

Two locations tie it to the films. Apple puts part of the story on Skull Island, the same island Kong: Skull Island (2017) visits in 1973, and another part in a village where a legendary Titan rises from the sea.

On the release calendar, the ten episodes aired from February 27, 2026 to May 1, 2026. Chris Black ran the season as showrunner, and Amber Midthunder joined the cast as Isabel. Apple announced the order on April 11, 2024, alongside a multi-series deal with Legendary that covers spin-off series. The next step is undecided: TVLine reported on October 29, 2026 that Apple had not formally renewed the show for a third season, and that talks were reportedly under way.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), directed by Michael Dougherty, takes place five years after the Titans were revealed to the world. Scientist Emma Russell and her daughter Madison Russell watch a new Mothra hatch at a Monarch base, and Emma calms the creature with the Orca, a device that communicates with Titans. Mercenaries led by Alan Jonah raid the base and take both women, and Monarch recruits Emma's former husband Mark Russell to help find them.

The trail leads to Antarctica, where Emma frees a three-headed Titan, Monster Zero, later named king ghidorah. Emma argues that waking the other Titans will heal the planet, and she releases more of them, including Rodan. The final battle takes place at Fenway Park in Boston, where Madison draws the Titans in with the Orca. Ishiro Serizawa gives his life to restore Godzilla's strength, mothra gives up hers to power his last blast, and Emma stays behind with the Orca to buy time.

The credits show cave paintings of Godzilla fighting a creature that looks like Kong, and Titans gathering at Skull Island. In a scene after the credits, Jonah's group buys King Ghidorah's severed left head in Mexico. More detail is on the godzilla king of the monsters page.

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), directed by Adam Wingard, takes place five years after the earlier Titan battles and brings the two lead monsters together. Kong lives under Monarch's watch inside a large dome on Skull Island, and a young deaf orphan named Jia talks with him in sign language. Godzilla then attacks an Apex Cybernetics facility, and Apex CEO Walter Simmons recruits the Hollow Earth theorist Nathan Lind to find a power source beneath the surface.

Monarch ships Kong toward an entrance in Antarctica while Madison Russell, Josh Valentine and Bernie Hayes investigate Apex and end up in Hong Kong. Inside the Hollow Earth, Kong takes a glowing axe made from a Godzilla dorsal plate. The two Titans fight, and Godzilla gets the better of Kong until Apex reveals mechagodzilla, a giant machine piloted through a link to the severed head of King Ghidorah. Mechagodzilla kills Simmons, Kong is revived with an electrical shock, and he destroys it with the axe after Godzilla powers it up.

The two Titans part ways, Godzilla returning to the ocean and Kong to the Hollow Earth, where Monarch builds an observation post. The godzilla vs kong page has the full film details.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) sits some years after the Mechagodzilla fight in Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), and it is the latest Monsterverse film to have reached theaters. Adam Wingard directed it, as he did the previous entry. On the timeline it opens with two separate lives: Kong alone in the Hollow Earth, hunting for any others of his species, and Godzilla on the surface, putting down Titans that menace cities, among them one that attacks Rome.

What links the two is a signal that Monarch's Hollow Earth outpost picks up and that also reaches Jia, the last known member of the Iwi tribe. Ilene Andrews, Jia, the podcaster Bernie Hayes and the Titan veterinarian Trapper (Dan Stevens) travel to trace it. It proves to be an Iwi distress call, and Kong, on his own path, finds a concealed tribe of apes that includes a young one named Suko.

That tribe lives under the skar king, a tyrant who uses a crystal to bend the ice-breathing Titan shimo to his will. Shimo hurts Kong's arm, and Trapper gives him a prototype glove that restores his strength. Jia awakens Mothra, whom the Iwi worship, and she calms Godzilla after a short fight with Kong, so the three Titans can head into the Hollow Earth together against the Skar King's forces.

The Skar King and Shimo slip through a portal to Rio de Janeiro, where Shimo's power starts a new ice age. Suko smashes the control crystal with Kong's axe, Shimo turns on the Skar King and freezes him, and Kong shatters him. Afterward Godzilla melts the ice with his atomic breath and goes back to rest in the Colosseum in Rome. Jia stays with the Iwi, Mothra restores the barrier that protects them, and Kong returns to the Hollow Earth with Shimo and Suko as leader of his tribe. See godzilla x kong the new empire for the film page.

Godzilla x Kong: Supernova has no stated place in the story yet. It is due in US theaters on March 26, 2027, directed by Grant Sputore and written by Dave Callaham. Warner Bros. distributes it, with Toho handling Japan. Variety reported in May 2025 that the sequel was titled Supernova as it began production for that release date, and the studio page still lists March 26, 2027. No UK or AU date has been found.

For now, the film sits after The New Empire by release only. Cast, status and any date changes are tracked on the godzilla x kong supernova page, and official footage is collected on the Godzilla x Kong: Supernova trailer page.

The Monsterverse timeline is one line that runs from Kong: Skull Island (2017), set in 1973, and Godzilla (2014) through Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and the three later films. Here are the questions people ask most, each with the answer first and my opinion after it, so you can disagree where you like.

Who is older, Kong or Godzilla? Kong and Godzilla have no stated ages. Kong is seen in 1944 and Godzilla is tied to the 1954 Bikini Atoll test, but those are first sightings and not ages. Cave images in Kong: Skull Island (2017) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) show both as old, and Ishiro Serizawa calls Godzilla an ancient predator, so in my opinion it is a tie.

Is Monarch canon? Yes, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is canon to the Monsterverse. The series follows Godzilla (2014), sits in the same continuity as the films, and shares Bill Randa with Kong: Skull Island (2017).

Where does season 2 go? Monarch season 2 is set in 2017, so it sits before Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019). That film has no stated calendar year, only that it opens five years after the Titans were revealed, which means the exact order of the two is my inference and not a stated fact. It could be argued that season 2 works as a bridge between the first two films and the later three.

Should you watch in story order? Release order is the better first watch. The scene after the credits in Kong: Skull Island (2017) lands harder when you already know Godzilla from 2014, so, in my opinion, save the story order for a rewatch. The monsterverse movies in order page has both lists, the monsterverse movies hub covers the wider series, and the creatures are on monsterverse titans.