And so we arrive at the hollow world. Not merely the subterranean kingdom of Kong and Godzilla but the cultural landscape of global capitalism itself: a world filled with endless noise, endless images, endless conversation – and an ever-diminishing capacity to say anything that might truly matter It preserves the sensation of mystery without the risks associated with belief. It offers wonder without commitment, discovery without controversy, and transcendence without politics.
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Watching the recent King Kong and Godzilla films is a blast. A giant ape and a giant lizard rampage through cities, sometimes fighting each other, sometimes clashing with yet another monster. It looks amazing, passes the time wonderfully, and leaves no lasting mark. But here’s the curious part: these films decided to bring in the esoteric idea of the “hollow world” as part of their narrative.
The Hollow World
A map of “The Interior World,” from the novel The Goddess of Atvatabar by William Bradshaw (1892). Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
What is the hollow world, really? It’s part scientific speculation, part mythology, part pure literary imagination. Back in the 17th century, English astronomer Edmond Halley (yes, the Halley of the comet) guessed that the Earth might have concentric hollow shells, complete with caverns and an inner atmosphere. Later, in the 19th century, American officer John Cleves Symmes Jr. made it a public sensation, claiming gigantic polar openings led to an inner, inhabited Earth. Adventurers and thrill-seekers loved the idea.
Of course, the hollow world didn’t stay confined to dusty textbooks. Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) transformed underground spaces into realms of adventure, discovery, and even self-awareness. Edgar Rice Burroughs took it further with Pellucidar, an entire inner world with its own sun and prehistoric civilizations. By the 20th and 21st centuries, the hollow world became a recurring theme – sometimes connected to conspiracies, other times purely fantastical – evolving from pseudo-science into a cultural symbol: a way to explore the boundaries of knowledge, the unknown, and the imagination of hidden worlds.
Pat Boone, Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)
Now, this concept didn’t suddenly appear in Godzilla vs. Kong or Kong: Skull Island. Godzilla films have flirted with hidden worlds for decades. In the 1960s, Toho movies like Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, and Invasion of Astro-Monster hinted at secret realms, ancient monsters, and “other” spaces – sometimes from other planets, sometimes from beneath the Earth. Later films, like Godzilla vs. Megalon, even featured underground civilizations like Seatopia.
Even Dungeons & Dragons joined the fun. In 1990, TSR released the Hollow World Campaign Set, giving players a chance to explore an exotic inner space full of preserved ancient civilizations, “living history,” and adventures beyond the normal rules. It was short-lived, a handful of modules in the early ‘90s, but it perfectly captured the thrill of combining pseudo-scientific curiosity with adventurous imagination. As a former D&D player myself (and DM), I loved this set.
The hollow world is, in short, an esoteric playground. Like other harmless esoteric ideas, it’s perfect for big-budget films. Consider the aliens-built-the-pyramids theory from Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods, which inspired Stargate, the movie, and a whole TV franchise.
But the modern “hollow world” of Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse is something else. It takes all those earlier hints and unites them into a coherent, fully realized underground ecosystem – a classic inner world straight out of Jules Verne.
Some ideas are more complicated. These are called conspiracy theories. They are dangerous waters. Flat Earth, lizard people, deep-state theories – they have followers. And those followers bring politics along. That’s why filmmakers proceed cautiously: conspiracy-laden ideas can make blockbusters risky, but obscure ideas with no organized group? Completely safe.
Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)
The appeal of the hollow world lies not merely in its obscurity. It occupies a peculiar middle ground between myth and ideology. Unlike religion, it has no organized believers. Unlike conspiracy theories, it has no political movement behind it. Unlike nationalism, it demands no loyalty. Yet unlike pure fantasy, it carries the seductive aura of a forgotten possibility, a secret history waiting to be discovered.
In this sense, the hollow world is the perfect myth for global capitalism. It preserves the sensation of mystery without the risks associated with belief. It offers wonder without commitment, discovery without controversy, and transcendence without politics.
The Spirit of Capitalism
To understand why this matters, it helps to turn to a very different kind of book. Boltanski and Chiapello’s The New Spirit of Capitalism argues that capitalism doesn’t just rely on money; it also depends on ideology and on absorbing critique. From Fordist stability and hierarchy to flexible networks, temporary projects, and self-expression, capitalism takes in rebellion and artistic critique, turning dissent into productivity.
Boltanski and Chiapello adopted Max Weber’s concept of “Spirit of capitalism” and, by doing so, challenged the Weberian perspective on capitalism’s inevitable bureaucratic petrification (what he called the “‘iron cage”), as well as the classical Marxist expectation that capitalism’s contradictions would eventually undermine the system itself. Instead, it continually transforms and reconfigures itself to incorporate and neutralize the critiques leveled against it.
This is where the hollow world and giant monsters meet capitalism’s “new spirit.” These films are global products. The hollow world is politically risk-free. By contrast, flat-earthers or apocalyptic believers could, and sometimes do, interfere.
So, what does this mean for the blockbuster? The hollow world allows it to be fantastical, spectacular, and utterly safe. Cities crumble, monsters clash, but the film is harmless. Non-threatening. Even international audiences and sensitive markets can watch without complaint.
The Political Monster
Compared to Godzilla Minus One (2023), the contrast could hardly be sharper. Where the MonsterVerse transforms Godzilla into a vehicle for increasingly frictionless spectacle, Minus One returns the monster to its political and emotional roots. Godzilla is not simply something to fight; it is a manifestation of historical trauma, institutional failure, and the unresolved consequences of war. In doing so, the film demonstrates that blockbuster cinema can still do something the hollow world cannot: confront audiences with uncomfortable realities instead of offering them a safe escape from them.
Even in the new Godzilla and Kong franchise, they used to say something. Kong: Skull Island (2017) tried to convey an anti-war message and present Samuel L. Jackson as Preston Packard, a warmongering US Army lieutenant colonel and Vietnam veteran who, like Captain Ahab, inevitably leads to his and others’ demise.
Samuel L. Jackson, Kong: Skull Island (2017)
In contrast, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024), the latest installment, for now, in the MonsterVerse, makes the gap almost embarrassingly clear: this is not just a difference in budget or scale but in what popular cinema is imagined to be capable of. Where Godzilla Minus One anchors its spectacle in history, trauma, and social conflict, the latter franchise entry feels hollow by design. This film substitutes emotional and political substance for frictionless spectacle.
The existence of exceptions does not invalidate the trend. In fact, films such as Godzilla Minus One stand out precisely because they feel increasingly exceptional within a blockbuster landscape dominated by frictionless spectacle. Yet their success also suggests that audiences have not lost their appetite for stories that demand something from them – stories willing to engage history, politics, or uncomfortable realities. Audiences are not passive victims of the hollow world. Many genuinely enjoy these films, and the success of the MonsterVerse lies precisely in its ability to satisfy a widespread desire for spectacle detached from obligation. But the continued popularity of more demanding works reminds us that the hollow world, however dominant, is not the only world available to us.
This hollowness of the world is the depoliticization of the movie, of so many movies. And depoliticization is occasionally confused with inclusiveness, but it actually allows for such a low, low common denominator that is empty. Hollow. The political is where society’s discomfort is acknowledged and where discussion and action on how to bring about change are held. That is relevant to all aspects of public life, including pop culture and movies.
Godzilla Minus One (2023)
Godzilla has often been read as a symbol of atomic destruction. An outcome of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The trauma of innocent citizens who were hurt, and of the rotten Japanese empire crumbling. King Kong was the symbol of human hubris trying to tame nature, and nature, pretty easily, fights back.
The irony is that two of cinema’s most enduring political monsters now find themselves inhabiting one of its least political worlds. Godzilla was born from one of the most traumatic political events of the twentieth century. The creature emerged from the anxieties of nuclear destruction, military power, and collective vulnerability. It was never simply a monster.
Kong could be an analogy for humankind’s role in climate change, but it isn’t. Godzilla can be an analogy for the atrocity of humankind and the unavoidable suffering it brings. But it isn’t. The films systematically avoid developing the political implications of their own imagery, leaving nothing but a giant monkey punching a giant lizard. In the most recent movie, even a giant monkey punches several other giant monkeys using a human-made mechanical arm. It is just fun and games, a great spectacle meant to sell tickets and toys.
Dan Stevens, Veterinarian for Monsters
Dan Stevens’s performance in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is perhaps the film’s most revealing element. Playing Kong’s eccentric veterinarian, he seems to inhabit a different movie altogether. While the rest of the cast struggles to lend emotional weight to an increasingly absurd mythology, Stevens embraces the absurdity with infectious enthusiasm. He performs less like a participant in the narrative than a spectator who somehow wandered onto the set.
What makes the performance memorable is not merely its humor but its self-awareness. Stevens appears to recognize something the film itself cannot acknowledge: that the mythology surrounding it is so nonsensical because it is secondary to the spectacle it exists to support. His persistent grin and exaggerated energy transform him into an accidental commentator on the MonsterVerse itself. Rather than concealing the franchise’s emptiness, he seems to play directly into it.
In that sense, Stevens becomes the ideal actor for the hollow world. He does not attempt to convince us that this universe possesses hidden depth. Instead, he invites us to enjoy the spectacle for what it is: entertaining, extravagant, and ultimately unconcerned with saying very much at all.
The MonsterVerse is not unusual because it is empty; it is unusual because it makes that emptiness visible. Most contemporary franchises conceal their commercial logic beneath narratives of originality, representation, or world-building. The MonsterVerse often seems content to present the machinery itself.
Globalized Capitalism and the Hollow World
Global capitalism has produced a peculiar cultural logic. It is no longer enough for a film to entertain. It must also travel. It must cross borders, survive censorship boards, avoid diplomatic controversies, offend no major market, and reassure investors that nothing within it will threaten future revenues. The result is not necessarily censorship in the traditional sense. It is something subtler: a gradual filtering of culture toward the universally consumable.
And there is something admirable in this development. It is good that entire peoples are no longer cast automatically as villains. It is good that cultural sensitivities are taken seriously. It is good that we have become more aware of the ways representation can wound. Yet someone still decides which wounds matter. Someone still decides whose anger must be anticipated, whose sensitivities must be accommodated, and whose grievances can be ignored. In the age of global media, those decisions increasingly belong not to audiences or artists but to the institutions that finance, distribute, regulate, and profit from culture.
Globalization is not merely responsible for producing giant spectacles; it is the environment in which contemporary culture exists. Like the fish in David Foster Wallace’s essay “This Is Water,” we are often unable to perceive the system precisely because we live entirely within it. Global flows of capital, media, technology, and information have become so pervasive that they appear natural.
This interconnected world has generated remarkable achievements. Films, ideas, and artistic traditions circulate across continents with unprecedented ease. A Japanese Godzilla film can become a worldwide phenomenon. Audiences can encounter stories from places they may never visit. Much has been gained.
But globalization is also a structure of power. The issue is not whether globalization itself is desirable. The issue is how the logic of global circulation reshapes culture. When films are designed to travel everywhere, they are increasingly pressured to avoid saying anything that might limit where they can travel. The result is not necessarily censorship; it is the gradual emergence of a culture optimized for its own circulation.
The problem does not lie in globalization itself, nor in the technologies that enable global circulation. The problem lies in who possesses the power to shape that circulation and to determine which stories are allowed to travel most easily. Large media corporations are not primarily organized around the pursuit of ideas, political commitments, or artistic risk. They are organized around the pursuit of growth, stability, and profit. The consequence is not usually overt propaganda. It is something more subtle: a cultural environment that steadily rewards safety over confrontation, circulation over conviction, and marketability over meaning.
The hollow world is less a fantasy beneath the Earth than a metaphor for this condition: expansive, interconnected, endlessly accessible – and curiously empty at its center. Not because it is false but because it is frictionless. Not because it lacks imagination but because it lacks consequences. The result is a bright new hollow world: global, interconnected, endlessly entertaining – and increasingly incapable of imagining anything beyond itself.
Under such conditions, the most successful stories are often those that ask the least of their audiences. They can be translated, exported, franchised, and consumed almost anywhere. Their very emptiness becomes a strength. What emerges is not a world without stories but a world increasingly populated by stories designed to avoid becoming obstacles to their own circulation.
The question is no longer whether culture should avoid causing harm. The question is who possesses the power to define what counts as harm in the first place. When offending the weak is forbidden, culture becomes more humane. When offending the powerful becomes impossible, culture becomes hollow.
The Hollow World Is the Symptom
The result is a popular culture increasingly populated by giant franchises, immense spectacles, and carefully managed fantasies. A giant ape fights a giant lizard while thousands of artists, technicians, and executives work tirelessly to ensure that nothing on screen might disturb anyone of consequence. No government. No corporation. No strategic market. No audience segment is large enough to matter financially.
None of this makes the films bad. They are often entertaining, technically astonishing, and occasionally delightful. The problem is not that spectacle exists. Cinema has always relied on spectacle. The problem emerges when spectacle ceases to serve any larger imaginative, emotional, or political purpose.
Unlike the capitalism Marx described, this system no longer appears to generate the forces of its own destruction. It survives by adapting. It absorbs criticism, repackages dissent, and turns rebellion into content. It does not fear its critics; it hosts them. It does not suppress every opposing voice; it invites them to participate, provided they do not interrupt the show. The genius of the contemporary blockbuster is not that it tells audiences what to think; it is that it increasingly avoids asking them to think about anything in particular. An agreement creates divisions. Disagreement creates divisions. Ambiguity travels better.
Godzilla Minus One
Hollywood has always pursued profit. What’s new is scale. Earlier blockbusters were primarily designed for national audiences and only later exported abroad. Contemporary franchises are conceived from the beginning as global products. Their politics are shaped not by a single public sphere but by dozens of markets, regulatory regimes, cultural sensitivities, and political expectations simultaneously.
And so we arrive at the hollow world. Not merely the subterranean kingdom of Kong and Godzilla but the cultural landscape of global capitalism itself: a world filled with endless noise, endless images, endless conversation – and an ever-diminishing capacity to say anything that might truly matter It preserves the sensation of mystery without the risks associated with belief. It offers wonder without commitment, discovery without controversy, and transcendence without politics.
The hollow world is not merely a product of studio executives. It is the kind of story that recommendation engines, audience testing, international market analysis, and algorithmic forecasting are all likely to approve. It is a mythology optimized for circulation. The hollow world is not the problem; it is merely the symptom. The real story is the cultural system that increasingly rewards stories that can mean everything to everyone and therefore very little to anyone.
The Roaring Voice of the Spirit of Global Capitalism
The hollow world is the roaring voice of the new global capitalist spirit – absorbing potential threats, smoothing differences, creating the impression of a meaningful narrative without saying anything overtly controversial. The fantasy is spectacular, safe, and universally marketable.
Perhaps this is the ultimate achievement of the new spirit of capitalism: not the management of politics but its disappearance. Politics is neither defeated nor censored. It is rendered unnecessary, leaving behind only spectacle – endless, exhilarating, and empty.
Dan Stevens on the red carpet at the Big Screen Achievement Awards at the 2024 CinemaCon at The Colosseum Theater at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo by Gage Skidmore, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
We sit in the dark and watch the ape fight the lizard. Sometimes they fight each other. Sometimes they fight something else. It looks spectacular. The visual effects are extraordinary. Dan Stevens is clearly having the time of his life. And when it is over, we leave the theater having been encouraged to care deeply about everything except the world outside its doors.
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All images are screenshots from the works discussed.
