Summary

• Skull Island is a crucial and recurring setting in the Monsterverse, serving as the origin and home of King Kong and other large creatures.
• Skull Island is also significant because it serves as a gateway to the Hollow Earth, a hidden world explored in Godzilla vs. Kong.
• The ecosystem of Skull Island is connected to the Hollow Earth, and the island's inhabitants, including Kong, fled there after the ancient Titan War. However, in the Monsterverse timeline, Skull Island is rendered uninhabitable by 2023.

Making a return to the Monsterverse via Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Skull Island may be the singular, most important locale in Legendary’s films. Since the King Kong character was created in 1993, the classic location has been a recurring setting in projects associated with the giant ape. Unsurprisingly, it also holds a place in the cinematic universe that Kong shares with Godzilla.

The island has seen many big-screen incarnations, but the core concept has remained intact. Typically, it’s depicted as the place of origin for King Kong and the home of other large creatures. The same is true for the Monsterverse version of the character, though ittedly, Legendary has made some big changes to the lore, including the history of the island itself and what it actually is. That said, it’s still crucial to Kong’s world, as it’s been the focal point of both Kong: Skull Island and Netflix’s Skull Island anime. In addition to a brief appearance in Godzilla vs. Kong, it’s also relevant to Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, at least to some degree. That much is made clear by Goodman's cameo in the marketing.

Where Skull Island Is In The Monsterverse (& Why It’s So Hard To Find)

Though it’s been used multiple times at this point, Skull Island is not known to be an easy place to visit. It’s surrounded by storms, hence why its existence has eluded people for so many years. These storms have long concealed it, but an expedition led by Monarch in Kong: Skull Island allowed a group of human characters to successfully navigate the weather and reach the island, which John Goodman’s Bill Randa was able to discern was somewhere in the South Pacific. As evidenced by maps in the Godzilla vs. Kong opening credits and Godzilla: King of the Monsters, it’s specifically in the northern part of the South Pacific, somewhere to the south of Hawaii.

Skull Island Is A Gateway To The Hollow Earth

As for what makes Skull Island so special, it’s not necessarily Kong’s presence that has turned it into a fixture of the Monsterverse. At the heart of its role in Godzilla and Kong’s world is the island’s Hollow Earth entry point. As theorized by Randa and Houston Brooks in the 2015 film, there’s an underground ageway used by Titans to traverse the planet on Skull Island. This network of tunnels connects to a hidden world called the Hollow Earth, which was explored in Godzilla vs. Kong.

Titans like the Skullcrawlers using Hollow Earth entry point is the reason why Kong’s presence on the island was essential to Skull Island’s safety. Without Kong, the Skullcrawlers would be able to use it as they please and populate the island. What’s worse is that other Titans can use it as well. Monsterverse tie-in comic Kingdom Kong saw Kong go up against Camazotz, a powerful bat Titan who used the entry point to wage war against Kong on Skull Island before being defeated.

Why Monsters Live On Skull Island

It’s worth noting that Skull Island’s link to the Hollow Earth defines it in more ways than one. Not only is it the reason why Skull Island is so dangerous, it’s always why any monster lives there. Nathan Lind said in Godzilla vs. Kong that Dr. Andrews had a theory that Skull Island is in essence, “the Hollow Earth come to the surface.” Since the fauna and flora of the Hollow Earth do resemble the ecology of the island, it’s apparent that this is the root of Skull Island’s origin story. Somehow, its ecosystem expanded from the Hollow Earth to the surface.

In other words, the Hollow Earth is the natural home of the denizens of Skull Island, even if they’ve never been there. The same goes for Kong himself. A twist in Godzilla vs. Kong confirmed that the Kong species once occupied the Hollow Earth world thousands of years ago. They even built a temple, along with other structures. Later on, they fled the Hollow Earth and used the tunnel to reach the surface, most likely as a consequence of the ancient Titan War fought against Godzilla and his ancestors. Having left their ancestral home behind, the Kongs tried to start anew on Skull Island, but over time, were driven to near-extinction by the Skullcrawlers.

What Happens To Skull Island In The Monsterverse

Sometime after the first trip to Skull Island, humans worked out ways to keep going back. As confirmed by King of the Monsters, Monarch set up an outpost there that was monitoring Kong. Monarch maintained a presence for decades, all the way up until Godzilla vs. Kong when outside events forced them to leave – with Kong. At the beginning of the movie, it was revealed that the storm had overtaken the island, completely ruining the entire ecosystem. The storm ravaged it to a point where Monarch no longer had confidence that Kong could continue living there. For that reason, he was relocated to the Hollow Earth world.

Since Godzilla vs. Kong takes place five years after King of the Monsters, that means Skull Island was rendered uninhabitable by 2023 in the Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire's synopsis confirming to explore the “mysteries of the Skull Island,” it may be revisited regardless, but it’s hard to imagine it ever going back to being the beautiful, monster-filled, jungle setting it was presented to be in Kong: Skull Island. It’s devastated beyond that point now, which is why any depictions of the place in any installment set after 2013 will likely depict it as a sad, desolate ruin devoid of the creatures that once made it a thriving environment.

Of course, that’s not to say Skull Island’s rich ecosystem won’t be utilized for more Monsterverse stories. There’s room in the timeline for all sorts of adventures on Skull Island, which is what allowed the aforementioned Netflix series to use it as the basis of its story, which seems to be set in the 1990s. Taking place before 2023 can also be helpful to Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, since it explores multiple eras of Monsterverse history, including the aftermath of the 2014 movie and the 1950s when Godzilla was attacked by the American military. It also boasts at least one cameo from Goodman's Randa, seemingly when he was on Skull Island in 1971. Because of the periods chosen for the show, the series can easily go back to Skull Island without the events of Godzilla vs. Kong getting in the way.