Godzilla vs. Kong director Adam Wingard entertained the possibility that Kong could very well know how to flip the bird given his knowledge of sign language in the film. The latest MonsterVerse film pits the two poster children of the franchise against one another. Not since 1962's King Kong vs. Godzilla has their clash been the main event, and fans were eager to see who would win. So eager, in fact, that the film has already outstripped its predecessor at the box office. Godzilla: King of Monsters earned $386.6 million, while Godzilla vs. Kong has already made $393.7 million and counting.
Godzilla vs. Kong had a noticeably lighter tone than other films in the franchise. From the beginning, both Kong and Godzilla are presented as plenty more than monsters. Human characters on each one's side let the audience know that they're not all bad and set up the climax of the film. Madison Russel (Millie Bobby Brown) is certain that Godzilla's behavior is abnormal and works to solve the mystery of what drove him to be destructive. Jia (Kaylee Hottle), a deaf Iwi child, demonstrates a close bond with Kong from the beginning and regularly communicates with the giant ape using sign language that she taught him.
Wingard teased the notion that Kong may know how to flip the bird when the question was posed to him in a Reddit AMA. Fielding fan questions on r/Godzilla, a forum dedicated to all things related to the classic monster, Wingard said it was entirely possible, though unlikely. Jia taught Kong how to speak sign language, so it would have to have been her that taught it to him "and she's too much of a sweetheart to do that." There's always the possibility that Kong could learn, however. Read Wingard's answer below:
u/thatonecoolnerd: Ok ok, I’ll ask the big question everyone is thinking of: If Kong knows sign-language, can he flip the bird?
Wingard: Great question. I suppose Jia would have to teach him that one and she's too much of a sweetheart to do that...But there is always room for growth :)
There's no telling what the depth of Kong's vocabulary is. Jia mostly spoke heart to heart with Kong, be she did use sign language to talk smack about bigheaded individuals without them knowing. Surely Kong would have liked to flip Godzilla off, though he was otherwise preoccupied with the brawl of the century. Kong being able to communicate via sign language actually opens up a lot of possibilities – what wisdom can he communicate with a language humans understand?
The untoward success of Godzilla vs. Kong is a windfall for Legendary Entertainment. Fans have come out to see the film in droves and then taken to the internet to continue the conversation. Legendary says that it has a lot more ideas for MonsterVerse films, so this hopefully won't be the last fans see of a Kong who can communicate using sign language. There's much more to learn from him and many more obscenities for him to learn, especially when Jia becomes a teenager.
Source: Adam Wingard via Reddit