Will the monsters in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) get enough screen time? If so, how?

Well, the monsters will be getting at least 1/2 of the runtime.

That's been confirmed by Mike Dougherty.

Anyways, according to my sources, (minor spoilers ahead)

Godzilla has a least 1/3 of the monster screentime.

Rodan is sadly considered the least important, but has more screentime than Mothra, who only has 6-8 minutes not counting the larval mothra

Gmkgoji Well, I would rather have minor spoilers about screen time over being confused as to how in the world 17+ monsters, a human story, and the main 4 would all share the amount of time (132 minutes) that the film has in total.

I imagine that a lot of the scenes will intertwine the monsters with the human story so as to be more narratively efficient. Not only that, doing this could be a good way of helping to move along the story in a creative and visually appealing manner that has room for plenty of easter eggs and symbolic imagery.

Given how obviously Michael Dougherty and the marketing has played up this film fixing the issue of Gareth Edwards's film where the monster action wasn't enough of a focus, I trust that things will go smoothly.

TheGMan123 I hope so. But if not, well then, I told you so. But there's really only one way to find out. (Insert my forum signature here.)

MDK 2 (MinecraftDinoKaiju) Hate to burst your bubble, but uh... only 4 of the other 17 titans appear in the movie.

^This.

Just because Serizawa says there are "17 and counting," doesn't mean we will see all 17+ monsters. The main monster cast is Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra and King Ghidorah. The rest are merely background fodder to establish more and more monsters are creeping out of the woodwork.

For the sake of discussion though, there is no Godzilla movie where the monsters take up "half" the screen time. The average percentage Godzilla is on screen is 14% per film. The average amount of time he's on screen (which matters less, since each film has a different run time) is 13:36 per film. It's also worth noting that in each film Godzilla has the most screen time of all the monsters--with the exception of 3 movies.

While this doesn't include every monster it's worth bringing up for the sake of debate. This is a list of how long Godzilla is on screen in each film and what percentage of the movie said screen time takes up. The screen times are rounded to the closest 15th second:

Godzilla '54 (8:45 out of 96 minutes) 9.1%

Godzilla Raids Again (9:30 out of 92 minutes)10.0%

King Kong vs. Godzilla (9:15 out of 97 minutes) 9.5%

Mothra vs. Godzilla (10:30 out of 88 minutes) 11.9%

Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster (8:00 out of 93 minutes) 8.6%

Monster Zero (5:45 out of 94 minutes) 6.1%

Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster (13:00 out of 87 minutes) 14.9%

Son of Godzilla (12:00 out of 86 minutes) 13.9%

Destroy All Monsters (8:30 out of 89 minutes) 9.5%

Godzilla's Revenge (8:15 out of 70 minutes) 11.8%

Godzilla vs. Hedorah (20:30 out of 85 minutes) 24.1%

Godzilla vs. Gigan (16:15 out of 89 minutes) 18.6%

Godzilla vs. Megalon (10:30 out of 81 minutes) 12.9%

Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla (7:55 out of 84 minutes) 9%

Terror of MechaGodzilla (9:30 out of 83 minutes) 11.5%

The Return of Godzilla (19:00 out of 103 minutes) 18.4%

Godzilla vs. Biollante (16:45 out of 104 minutes) 16.1%

Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (14:45 out of 103 minutes) 14.3%

Godzilla vs. Mothra (15:15 out of 102) 15%

Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla '93 (27:00 out of 102) 26.5%

Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (19:45 out 108) 18.2%

Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (20:15 out of 103) 19.6%

Godzilla 2000 (22:45 out of 107) 21.1%

Godzilla x Megaguirus (20:15 out of 105) 19.2%

Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (16:45 out of 105) 15.9%

Godzilla x MechaGodzilla (11:45 out of 88) 13.4%

Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (12:45 out of 91) 14.6%

Godzilla: Final Wars (15:00 out of 125) 12%

Godzilla '14 - (10:00 out of 123) 8.1%

Shin Godzilla - (17:30 out of 119) 15%

Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters - TBD

Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (5:45 out of 100) 5.8%

Godzilla: The Planet Eater - TBD

G. H. (Gman) Still though, that's what I mean. With 2014's Godzilla screen time (ten minutes out of 123) and COTEOB (5 minutes and 45 seconds out of 100), that is what I meant when I was worried about the amount of screen time the monsters will share. I didn't include Final Wars because at least we had the action to cover us, as well as a good human story. With KOTM, I'm worried that we may not have an interesting human story despite the action.

Alsom, the other monsters are background fodder? Well then, I hope that they appear in either GvK in 2020 or in a future Toho movie so that they get their chance to shine. Otherwise, it's this:

Btw, it's a cool vid. You should check it out. (Same applies to everyone else.)

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBs6rufFyCA

MDK 2 (MinecraftDinoKaiju) 

I saw that vid! It was hilarious

MDK 2 (MinecraftDinoKaiju),
I agree those films have a low ratio, but a lot of that fell on the characters doorstep. In Monster Zero, Godzilla has less than 6 minutes of screen time, but the characters and general invasion story is so well revered and executed that no one really notices. The original 1954 film only had a percent higher than the 2014 flick and it's a powerful film with very memorable monster sequences.

I don't necessarily think it's all about how much screen time the monsters have, but how it's used. Much of the screen time Godzilla has in the 2014 film is taken up by his tail slinking behind a building or close-ups of his arm as he saunters by. Whereas, Monster Zero, for example, wasted no time tossing him straight in the action and plowing over buildings.

Additionally, the 2014 movie had a rather mundane main character that's further hurt by the fact that he doesn't interact with other lead characters for much of the duration. What Godzilla: King of the Monsters needs is a solid balance--The best of the series has always been able to intertwine the characters with the actions of the kaiju. Example: In Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster, while protecting Princess Salno, Detective Shindo is saved from Malmess's sniper fire when collateral from King Ghidorah kills Malmess. In Terror of MechaGodzilla, Katsura decides to kill herself, forcing MechaGodzilla to shutdown so Godzilla can take it out--The actions of both the characters and monsters end up effecting one another. I think that's what we're looking at here.

As for the other monsters--I think the fact that the "new" monsters are just background designs, inserted to establish that they are returning to claim the Earth, is a perfectly acceptable role. Not every single monster needs to "shine" necessarily--That's putting too much emphasis on their existence. It would be strange for characters to say, "monsters are appearing everywhere," but we don't see any of them. So the fact that these designs are used merely to establish that fact helps the audience visualize that more and more are appearing around. That's the narrative point of their existence and that's all they really need to do.

G. H. (Gman): Exact screen time is nowhere as relevant as how the monsters will be portrayed, not simply "used". The runtime is interesting but ultimately not really that essential. 

Guys, Micheal Dougherty said that it was hard for him and Zach Shields to fit in a compelling human story due to all the monster action

Godzillatheking123,
Well said.

I think this movie's gonna be too long. 2 hours 12 minutes is a long time.

Gmkgoji Well, now that starts a completely new topic then: How well will the human story actually be in Godzilla: King of the Monsters?

Edit: Also, I heard about everyone worrying that KOTM might fail at the box office. If this was all started because of me and the comment I left on the other forum that the movie might fail, then I'm sorry. If it isn't, well then thanks for the clarification.

MDK 2 (MinecraftDinoKaiju),
People are worried that it will fail because the early box office projections, released a couple of weeks back, aren't very good.

 G. H. (Gman) Thanks. For a second, I thought I had made a terrible mistake on my part.

I'm not buying any predictions just yet, but if this movie doesn't do well, I blame it in large part on the 2014 film. Godzilla fans will go see this, but I think many non-G fans would have felt burned by the first and stayed away from this one. That, and the five year wait between films.

We'll have to wait and see. Here's hoping.