It might look like something from a movie, but your eyes don’t deceive you – Godzilla and Kong are lurking in London. Godzilla’s bristling pink spikes, brimming with atomic power, were seen poking up from the River Thames next to Kong’s giant hand, crushing an iconic London red phone box on Southbank.
The giant titan’s spine stretches an impressive 65 feet, the length of a tennis court. Meanwhile, Kong’s hand is a mammoth 16 feet tall, with a head seven metres in diameter – 45 times the size of a human’s.
A team of 40 people worked around the clock to create the two sculptures, spending a colossal 6,326 hours on the project over two months. It took 51 days just to paint the two giant beasts, which collectively weigh more than a tonne.
The city-smashing installation was created to launch Warner Bros. Pictures’ new movie, “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire”, released this Friday, March 29.
The sculptures were fabricated from 3D references from the filmmakers, and built in a combination of poly, fibreglass, and steel framework, as well as interactive lighting.
Godzilla contains over 70 individual pulsing pink lights to achieve the atomic effect – a spectacular addition in the new film, which sees him team up with Kong as a greater threat to earth materialises. And Kong is covered in over 30 metres of fur, to create a hyper-realistic finish.
“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” filmmaker, Adam Wingard, said: “A lot of the magic of the Monsterverse comes from watching these Titans battling it out in real-world surroundings.
“To see Godzilla and Kong actually accessing Hollow Earth portals into London just really blew me away! I felt like I did as a kid, watching the Toho classics on a Saturday afternoon.”
The giant beasts will be available to see beneath London’s OXO Tower – temporarily rebranded the GXK Tower, for today only (Monday) – ahead of the film’s release in cinemas across the UK and Ireland from Friday, March 29.
