Wyatt Russell Reveals Young Lee Shaw ‘Monarch’ Spin-Off Filming in 2026

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Following the massive success of Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire in cinemas and continuing the story set up in Season 1 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, the expansion of Warner Bros. and Legendary’s MonsterVerse has been nothing short of gargantuan since Gareth Edwards revived the Hollywood arm of the Godzilla franchise back in 2014. Now, as Apple TV prepare to release Season 2 of their stunning series, star Wyatt Russell has been teasing about when we will see his character’s new spin-off series begin filming.

In Season 1 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Kurt and Wyatt Russell played two different versions of the character Lee Shaw. While there seemed to be some confusion over the older version of Shaw’s age in the series, this was all explained when it was revealed that the younger version of the character spent 20 years lost in the Hollow Earth between 1962 and 1982, only to eventually return having not aged a day. While the show spent a lot of time flicking back and forth in time, there are still many gaps in Shaw’s timeline, and it looks like a new series focusing on Wyatt’s version of the character will fill some of these in.

Speaking to MovieWeb, Wyatt Russell confirmed to us that the new series is all primed and ready to begin filming soon.

“I’m beyond excited to get started on it. We will be shooting it this year. Seeing the character that Shaw has become in my dad’s character, he brings so much excitement and innate sort of magic to the screen that you can’t help but ask what happened in the time period between when Shaw came up [from the Hollow Earth] and when they saw him.”

Russell continued to share some details about what everyone can expect from the new spin-off and how it will use the “guardrail” already set in place to tell this next chapter in the MonsterVerse’s history.

“There’s so much to play with. The world is so big. It also has the benefit of having a little bit of the guardrail set for it. As we know, we live in this world. We know there are monsters now, there’s a tonal element of the 80s that we’re very excited to play with, that really hasn’t been done on a bigger scale. You’re gonna have other great, really interesting characters and storylines to play with. I have read the first few scripts, and I haven’t been that excited to read scripts in a very long time. So I’m over the moon to get to explore those things. I think it has a lot of opportunities. I’m very excited.”

‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ Continues to Span the Entire MonsterVerse

The first season of Monarch was primarily focused on establishing some new rules and timeline events around Godzilla. This included going back and slightly rewriting canon from Edwards’ 2014 movie, and connecting right up the introduction of Kong to the series.

Monarch opened with a scene involving John Goodman’s Kong: Skull Island character, Bill Randa, who worked to uncover the shady monster dealings of the Monarch group up to his death in 1973 on Skull Island. This made it clear that the giant ape would make an appearance at some point, but fans were left waiting until the final moments of Season 1.

Now, Season 2 will feature a lot more of Kong, as well as several new Titans, and, of course, Godzilla. The fate of Monarch, and the world, hangs in the balance, as ripples from the past become a new threat in the present, and as a deadly, mythical new Titan rises from the seas, the new season looks set to up the ante of Season 1’s character-driven storylines that skirt around the monsters hiding just under the surface of the Earth. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters begins its 10-episode run on Feb. 24 on Apple TV.