______KING KONG______



--- December 14, 2005

(NAZGUL9's Preview)

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Genre: Mysterious adventure

Cast: Naomi Watts (Ann Darrow), Jack Black (Carl Denham), Adrien Brody (Jack Driscoll), Andy Serkis (photo-mapping basis for Kong's face and movements, Lumpy the Cook), Thomas Kretschmann, Evan Parke, Colin Hanks, Kyle Chandler, Jamie Bell, Lobo Chan, Ray Woolf, John Sumner, Craig Hall, ...

Director: Peter Jackson

Screenwriter: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson

Producer: Jan Blenkin, Carolynne Cunningham, Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson

Composer: Howard Shore

Premise: Set in the 1930s, this is the story of a group of explorers and documentary filmmakers who travel to the mysterious Skull Island to investigate legends of a giant gorilla named Kong. Once there, they discover that King Kong is a real creature, living in a massive jungle where creatures from prehistoric times have been protected and hidden for millions of years. As the explorers search for the great ape, their quest puts them up against both Kong and his dinosaur enemies. Ultimately, it is the attention of a beautiful human woman that soothes Kong long enough for him to be subdued by the explorers and shipped back to New York, where his bleak future involves being put on display in front of humans... but how long can even the mightiest shackles of man hold back an ape 25 feet tall?

Filming: Production started on September 8, 2004, at Peter Jackson's Miramar Studios in Wellington, New Zealand. Estimated production budget is $150 million.

Interesting tidbit: This does not represent Peter Jackson's first attempt at remaking King Kong. Back in 1996, when Jackson was developing this movie as his next movie after The Frighteners, it was to have been a coproduction between Universal Pictures and Miramax Films. In January, 1997, however, the plug was pulled on the project, due to concerns that the marketplace was already too crowded with both Mighty Joe Young and Godzilla (both remakes) opening within seven months of each other in 1998. Jackson moved on to develop his Lord of the Rings trilogy instead. When Universal revived this project in early 2003, Miramax was no longer involved.

Good news!

Considering that this is right in my own backyard, I should be following it more intensely, but I am somewhat sidetracked because a mate of mine got choosen as an extra in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe to play a centaur in the great battle and she's been telling me all these fantastic stories despite the 12 hour work days!

IS THIS KONG?

Is that Kong??

Yes and no... It is the Kong that will appear in the upcoming book "Kong:King of Skull Island" (BTW that's the art for the wraparound cover of the book)

And no, it will not be the Kong in the Jackson film.

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Hey Ahmed!!


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He does look amazing, do you have any insider info Raziel?

Yes he does look pretty good in that illustration , that interpretation of Kong is actually based off of what Kong looked like in 1933...He's just been updated with some more realistic features...But the overall long head, flaring lips and "surprised" bug eyes have been incoprporated.

As for inside info.... Dont know if you're talking about the book or the film.
My friend is the co-author of the book which should be coming out in mid Decemeber, that's about all I can say on that.

As for the film, you can see some pretty cool production videos on kongisking.net


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Yes, i've been keeping up to date with all of the production videos......they are great, especially the one on matte paintings and special effects......some great early stuff there.

Kong does look amazing......though one thing that worries me about this is that everything seems to be "like" the original.....i'm not sure if it will ultimately hurt the movie in that it's not bringing anything new and the critics will jump on that.....

:?

As for casting, I've heard rumours that Jackson has already finished auditioning for the lead - here is a 2.9mb mpg movie that was smuggled out of Weta showing the winning actor in rehearsal!

Well, he is sticking very closely with the original storyline... His original intention for this film was to reintroduce it to a new generation that hasnt seen the original B&W version.
Personally I can say that out all my friends only one of them has seen the original Kong and 2 have seen the 76' version. Seeing that most of todays movie fans dont watch B&W movies Im guessing this will be like a brand new movie for those who haven't seen the original (which Im guessing is alot of people)

I do know he's adding extended scenes to the entire story so it wont be exactly the same, filling in plot holes, along with cleaning up some of the "1930's" style dialog that wont fly with today's audience. And of course the updated FX.

I guess only time will tell if it works or not..


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I've never seen the original B&W so this is all new to me......

This is a very hard movie to predict at the box-office.......it has all the makings of a Jurassic Park 1 yet it can go the way of Godzilla and Planet of the Apes.....and that's what i'm really worried about.......that the reviews might not be kind to this movie and it will die a painful death after opening weekend....... :?

BTW - is this like the first Summer-typesy blockbuster or moster pic to be scheduled in the Christmas season..... :wink: .......

I agree , it is a very hard movie to predict.
I admit that the original Kong is one of my all time favorite films and because of that I Im hoping the best for the remake. I try not to be biased about any films (Although Im sure I am, even on a subconcious level) so Im not going to say the movie will be a smash.But to be honest, I really havent seen anything (so far) that would indicate that Jackson won't deliver a good film.
Ive heard the same things you've said from other people.... Godzilla and Planet of the Apes failed so Kong might fail too. But you have to take into consideration that those films didnt fail because there were "apes" or "giant lizards" in it. Those films failed because of other problems.
The Godzilla remake wasn't based on existing storyline of the original version, it was drastically changed and it didnt hit the mark (and the acting, goofy characters didnt help either).
The same goes for Planet of the Apes.... The film was loosely based on the original film but they took a gamble and decided to change too many things which ended up not working.
Both Planet of the Apes and Godzilla had pretty good opening numbers in the BO...So the problem wasn't that people didnt want to see "apes" or "lizards", the problem is that once people saw these films weren't all they were hyped up to be the word of mouth killed it.
A good example is Jurassic Park... Good movie, well written, well acted etc. and it did well.

And to think if Jackson pulled off what he did with the LOTR trilogy, imagine what could do with a story he really cares about.


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One more thing about the original Kong..

Ive seen the original Kong dozens of times and to be honets I dont remember seeing another film from 1933 all the way to about the 1960's that has as much adventure and action as Kong.

While the original Kong has its problems, the storyline is the main grabber.

The original film had such problems as -

1) 1930s acting style - this is something that just wont fly with todays audience. If you watch a film like this it requires a bit of or imagination on the part of the audience. You have to take into consideration that this was the acting style in that time and in a sense you have put yourself in that 1930's midframe and let it play out without it effecting your view of the storyline.

2) WHile the dialog in Kong was pretty good, there were some hammy lines (and 1930's slang verbage) which also wont fly with todays audience.

3) The FX - the FX to me are no problem (As a matter a fact I think the effects in the 1933 film are actually better than the "guy in the monkey suit" effects of the 1976 remake.) but todays audience wont go for stop motion.

4) B&W - Once again, I enjoy B&W films but I know alot of people today wont watch that.

These are all factors which Jackson can improve on to re-introduce this film to todays audience.

Aside from that I think the original Kong has some of the best pacing Ive ever seen in any adventure film. The first 20 minutes of the film is a slow (but interesting) buildup and shows the characters devoloping and relating with each other... But once the ship reaches Skull Island the action/adventure is almost non stop and slows down for just the right amount of time between sequences. This is very rare for a 1933 film. This is one of the reasons I want to see this movie faithfully adapted for todays audience.

I keep hearing people say "Why i Kong being remade?".... I think that out of all the remakes that have come out in the last 10 years KONG is the most diserving of one. The original is over 70 years! Thats the biggest reason right there. A film that is completely unkown to a new generation.

Yet we're still being given remakes of films which are barely 30 years old???


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Very well said, and i totally agree with you, if it has substance it will do well.....that goes for most movies......

As i've got no clue what the story is about or the characters, it's quite hard for me to make any judgements on what PJ's done so far......just an interested observer supporting PJ and a story which has lots of potential.....

We have not seen a monster flick on this scale since Jurassic Park and its been some time since the JP franchise went crazy and Godzilla's appearance....

It's about time i think.......

I originally thought that this will be the sort of movie that will have a high domestic vs. international ratio........but after checking the grossers and thinking it through.......this might do OK.....potentially vieing for the Top 5 positions Worldwide next year......

Godzilla and Jurassic Park, heck even Planet of the Apes......all had good grossers overseas. The key is Asia who embraces this sort of movie with open arms.........i don't know about Europe though :?

Here's a production illustration from the Kong remake -


There's a good chance that isnt Kong's final design in the movie...It looks like the illustration is mainly for mood colors and to get an overall idea of what the scene should look like...Not a concept design for Kong.

Looks cool as!

Is that the T-Rex, i was expecting something slightly bigger though? :?

Anyway it looks so cool and can't wait to see two huge monsters going against each other at a ferocious pace......

Maybe I am naive but why is King Kong fighting a T-Rex?

Is this King Kong or Jurrasic Park 12

KJ

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6594604/site/newsweek/

Dec. 6 issue - Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are indisputably different people, but it is tempting sometimes to think of them as three voices in one person's head. One voice is exuberant (Boyens), one hilariously bleak (Walsh) and one eternally steady and focused (Jackson). It's late Friday night at Jackson and Walsh's house on a bay outside Wellington, New Zealand. The couple's children are in bed, and there are no scenes to shoot tomorrow, so they're lingering over dinner with Boyens, who wrote the "Lord of the Rings" movies with them, as well as their latest epic venture, "King Kong." The wine has been poured—more than once. The conversation has become giddy. "What was the question you asked about the possibility of failure?" Jackson says, attempting to steer the talk toward solid ground. Walsh laughs: "It's more than the possibility. It's the inevitability!" Now Jackson laughs. He tries again: "To live the rest of your life trying to top 'Lord of the Rings' would be a foolish and unsatisfying thing to do. So you set your sights on making a thoroughly entertaining movie so that people are not disappointed. It is highly unlikely 'King Kong' will ever make more money than 'Lord of the Rings'." Boyens can't stand all this levelheadedness another second. She leans forward. "Hello?" she says. "For the record, 'Kong' is going to kick 'Lord of the Rings' ' a--! It will!" Jackson and Walsh look at her fondly. Then, virtually in unison, they say, "That's the wine talking."

All told, the "Rings" trilogy won 17 Oscars, grossed nearly $3 billion worldwide and made Jackson a superstar director, even as he apologized for looking like a hobbit. (He's since lost 25 pounds, shed his glasses and, at Walsh's urging, begun wearing a somewhat broader palette of colors.) Jackson has wanted to remake "King Kong" since he was 13—the 1933 original, with the luminous Fay Wray, is so close to his heart that it couldn't be removed without life-threatening surgery. In 2003 Universal Pictures' Stacey Snider offered him, Walsh and Boyens an extraordinary $20 million advance to write, direct and produce.

Earlier this fall, Jackson invited NEWSWEEK to be the first to visit the set of "King Kong," which is due in theaters next December. His remake takes place in the '30s and is being shot in New Zealand—Weta Digital is building old New York on computer with a fanatical accuracy, using original blueprints and historical records. The movie stars Jack Black (as the obsessive movie director Carl Denham), Naomi Watts (as leading lady Ann Darrow) and Adrien Brody (as Jack Driscoll, in Jackson's version a playwright in the Arthur Miller mode, who's been cajoled into writing Denham's screenplay). Andy Serkis, whose acting was the basis for the digital Gollum, will "play" Kong, whose prehistoric island is breached by Denham as he hunts for one of the planet's dwindling mysteries. Serkis hasn't begun working with Watts yet. Judging from the menacing grunts and body language he summoned up for a reporter with a moment's notice, he is going to scare the crap out of her.

Jackson hopes to bring the Kong myth to a generation that's allergic to black-and-white movies, confuses "King Kong" with "Godzilla" and never saw the original, just the campy '70s remake. "I'm 26, and the only thing I knew about Kong was that he got on the Empire State Building and was shot down by planes," says Colin Hanks, who plays Denham's long-suffering assistant, a new character. "I watched some of the Jessica Lange version. It's painfully obvious that it's a guy in a monkey suit. I mean, he's literally walking around, looking in windows and going, 'Where's Jessica Lange?' "

One morning on the set, Black stands behind an antique hand-cranked Bell & Howell movie camera that's been perched on a nearly full-scale steamer ship on the lot. It's a clear, windy day. Crew members are on an adjacent hill watching the airport so that takeoffs and landings don't ruin the takes: planes fly so low over the lot that you can see the kangaroos painted on their tails. In this scene Black's character, Denham, is filming his own stars, capturing some edgy flirtation between Ann Darrow and her smooth costar Bruce Baxter. Watts and Kyle Chandler, who plays Baxter, nail the '30s-style inflections in dialogue taken straight from the original. He tells her women are trouble. She stiffens: "Well, is that a nice thing to say!" He retreats: "Aw, you're all right. But women—they just can't help being a bother. Made that way, I guess."

Black, playing director to the hilt, eventually calls cut and ad-libs some effusions. "Wonderful," he says. "Does somebody have a hankie, because you are steaming up the screen with true-to-life emotions! If we could just do one more for luck"—this is a Jacksonism, and there are suppressed smiles all around—"and let's bring it down a little in the eyes." Apparently, that's another Jacksonism. The director comes out from inside the ship, headphones around his neck, laughing and telling Black, "At least you're learning!" Later, Black explains: "My main job on this movie is not hamming it up too much. My natural tendency is to clown, so, yeah, he has told me on a few occasions, 'You need to relax the eyes'." "King Kong" has just begun filming, and it's touching to see the cast and crew make their first overtures at friendship. Told the filmmakers clearly love him, Black replies, "They love me? How do you know that?" He purses his lips and thinks. "Well, they may love me, but I totally love them twice as much."

The original "King Kong" is many times greater than the sum of its parts, and whether or not Jackson's remake ever achieves anything like its permanence, it can certainly improve on some things—the animation of Kong, for starters. (The early computer rendering of the gorilla on page 82 will give you a sense of the realism and ferocity Jackson's after.) It can redress the dated, if not racist, portrayal of the islanders who watch Kong get dragged off in chains. As for the performances in the original, Brody puts it best: "Fay Wray was fantastic, but [otherwise] the acting is pretty atrocious in parts of it." Jackson, Walsh, Boyens and Watts met Wray in New York after the Oscars. The director videotaped her briefly, and everyone remembers how Wray, 96, instantly transformed into a movie star, tilting her head and looking beautiful. "I thought, 'My God, I'm actually filming Fay Wray'," says Jackson. Wray died five months later. "Pete was devastated," says Boyens. "He was in love with her." She smiles. "While he was filming Fay, I said to Fran, 'Uh-oh, get the camera off him—he's gone geek'."

After dinner at Jackson and Walsh's house, everyone wanders up to the director's den, which, with its Civil War soldiers, its "Lord of the Rings" figures, its movie books and its big flat-screen TV, looks like the room of an independently wealthy 12-year-old. Jackson shows off some collectibles from the original "Kong." He has a Kong, made of lead and fake fur and smaller than the palm of your hand, that was used for the shot where the gorilla falls from the Empire State, banging ignominiously against the building on his way down. Also a brontosaurus, three feet long, its skin worn away to reveal a metal frame wrapped with rubber, cotton and thread. "This is the one that eats the sailor in the tree," he says. He picks up a model of the top of the Empire State Building, a bit roughly constructed out of cardboard and painted silver: "That's what I made when I was 13."

Everyone slumps down onto couches, and after prompting from Boyens, Jackson does something unexpected. He plays an "animatic"—an animated version of a scene made for planning purposes—of the last nine minutes of his movie. In other words: Kong's final stand atop the Empire State, and his fall. The animation is no-frills. The score is a patchwork. And yet the sequence, far different from the original in its choreography and emotional depth, is stunning. Even the sound of biplanes sputtering toward the gorilla is heartbreaking, because you know that Kong is not a villain—and you know what's coming. After the sequence ends, nobody talks. Then Walsh, ordinarily that funny, bleak voice in the head, speaks up. "People always ask Pete, 'Why do you want to remake 'King Kong'?" she says. "That's why."

No matter how hard Peter Jackson tries to make this(and I'm sure it'll be good before all of you get your panties in a twist as though I'm bashing it for all the oversensitive Jackson fans), it'll never ever be better than the 1933 Classic and it's a Classic for a reason.. I suggest for those who've never seen it to give it a rent or buy it when available, put aside the generation gap issue and see it for what it is..

This is unbelievable...This may be the first time that BKB and I agree on something. It will be a very difficult (if not impossible) task for Jackson to top the original. To me the original will always be the best.




Bacause that's always been part of the story. In the original movie Kong fights a T-rex , a giant snakelike creature and a pteradactyl. There was also a scene which was cut from the original film where he fights a triceratops.



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Well now see.. There is a 1st time for everything now isn't there??? :wink: We can now build our way up toward that common bonding... See?? I'm not so bad afterall now are I?? Makes you wish I were never banned from RT so we could continue to interact with one another over something stupid.. :wink: By the way, I notice many posters at RT are getting the boot.. What gives??

That's the main worry point.......nomatter how good it will be, there will inevitably be some sort of criticism and comparison with the "classic" original.....

.....that being said, will it really affect cinemagoers that much? afterall, this generation hasn't seen the original.... :wink:

Man, I'm sort of surprised that they haven't put the original out on DVD yet, even in honor of Fay Wray's death as a remembrance?? That having been said, this generation needs to watch this movie to better appreciate why the remake will be torn to shreds by critics and for good reason why to..