First trailer for Godzilla spin-off TV series promises carnage and monster-sized mysteries – as release date confirmed

Godzilla is back! Or he will be, come November 17 anyway. Ahead of its release date, Apple TV Plus has finally unveiled the first trailer for upcoming sci-fi spin-off series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters – and it promises some big ol' kaijus and even bigger conspiracies.

The clip, which you can watch above, sees a bunch of youngsters stumble across some ominous tapes left by John Goodman's Kong: Skull Island character William 'Bill' Randa, who used to work as a cryptozoologist for the titular scientific organization. "I don't know if this'll get to you in time, I hope so," he says in the shaky footage. "I can't go back in time and fix all the mistakes I made but maybe I can leave something for the future. A legacy."

"The world is on fire," Kurt Russell's shady-seeming Lee Shaw growls, as the promo cuts to the present and offers up a glimpse at a dilapidated San Francisco. "I decided to do something about it." The trailer doesn't give all that much away, but we're guessing that the immediate cut to a soldier painting an anti-Godzilla sign on his plane after that line suggests Shaw isn't too keen on the big boy and all those like him.

"Hopes, dreams, ambitions. The mission was to protect their world, and ours," he continues off-camera, though his tone and several shots of him reminiscing over a seemingly lost love further hint at his resentment – and a secret alternative agenda, too. "It's what we wanted Monarch to be," Shaw adds. Guess Godzilla and co aren't actually the "monsters" the show's subtitle is referring to, huh?

Anna Sawai, Mari Yamamoto, Anders Holm, Kiersey Clemons, Ren Watabe, Joe Tippett, Elisa Lasowski, and Russell's real-life son Wyatt Russell round out the cast.

So far, the ever-expanding Monsterverse consists of Godzilla (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), and Godzilla vs Kong (2021). Fans of the franchise are now eagerly anticipating the release of the next big-screen chapter Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire in April 2024.

The first two episodes of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters will be available to watch on Apple TV Plus from November 17, with the rest of its 10 episodes rolling out weekly after that. While we wait, check out our list of the best Apple TV shows for some viewing inspiration.