Sam Neill is no stranger to facing off against giant dinosaurs, but his next project will be on an entirely different level as the iconic actor is set to join the next MonsterVerse movie from Legendary.
Plot details are naturally being kept under wraps at this time, but Legendary has teased that the sequel will feature “several new human characters alongside the beloved and iconic Titans Godzilla and Kong as they face off against a cataclysmic world-ending threat.“ Kaitlyn Dever (The Last of Us) is set to star in the new MonsterVerse project, with Jack O’Connell (28 Years Later) said to be playing the brother of Dever’s character. Matthew Modine (Stranger Things), Alycia Debnam-Carey (Fear the Walking Dead), and Delroy Lindo (Sinners) have also joined the cast. Dan Stevens (Abigail) is also expected to reprise the role of Trapper, Monarch’s Titan veterinarian who memorably replaced Kong’s infected tooth with a metallic one in the last movie.
After directing the last two films in the MonsterVerse franchise, director Adam Wingard will be sitting this one out. He elected to step away to focus on his upcoming action horror thriller, Onslaught. The studio tapped Grant Sputore, the director of Hilary Swank’s sci-fi thriller I Am Mother, to helm the new installment. Dave Callaham (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) is writing the script. The MonsterVerse film is slated for a March 26, 2027 release.
Neill has been keeping a low profile since the release of Jurassic World Dominion after he was diagnosed with stage 3 angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. Thankfully, the cancer is now in remission, although he will have to have a chemotherapy drug for the rest of his life. The actor took the time to write his memoir, Did I Ever Tell You This?, during this period. “I found myself with nothing to do…And I’m used to working. I love working. I love going to work. I love being with people every day and enjoying human company and friendship and all these things. And suddenly I was deprived of that,” he said. “And I thought, ‘what am I going to do?’…as I went on and kept writing, I realised it was actually sort of giving me a reason to live and I would go to bed thinking, ‘I’ll write about that tomorrow … that will entertain me.’ And so it was a lifesaver really, because I couldn’t have gone through that with nothing to do, you know.”
