TRICK 'R TREAT Director Michael Dougherty Will Reportedly Direct GODZILLA 2

Yesterday, we found out that Trick 'r Treat writer/director Michael Dougherty and his Krampus co-writer Zach Shields had been hired to write the screenplay for Godzilla 2, Legendary Pictures' follow-up to Gareth Edwards' 2014 monster movie. But it gets better: ScreenCrush is reporting that Dougherty will direct the film as well.

Dougherty is a fun filmmaker, as seen in Trick 'r Treat and Krampus, and he has a bunch of experience not only with Legendary as a company, but with large-scale blockbusters as a writer on Superman Returns, X-Men 2, and X-Men: Apocalypse.

The site says they were unable to confirm if Dougherty and Shields are planning to use any of Edwards' ideas in their version of the sequel. Edwards reportedly wanted to include the character of Mechagodzilla in Godzilla 2, though it's also unclear whether he would have used that beast as a man-made creation (perhaps with some association to Project Monarch?) or an alien baddie.

The only downside to this news for me is that it presumably means we'll have to wait longer until we see Trick 'r Treat 2, a sequel I've been excited about since the moment it was announced a couple of years ago.

Kong: Skull Island hits theaters on March 10, 2017, and that will be followed by Godzilla 2 on March 22, 2019. It all leads up to King Kong vs. Godzilla, which is set for release on May 29, 2020.