| advertise add site services publishers database health videos | ![]() | about toolbar stats live show health store more stuff JOIN/LOGIN |
For the video game, see Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie.
King Kong is a 2005 remake of the 1933 film of the same name directed by Peter Jackson and stars Naomi Watts, Jack Black and Adrien Brody. Andy Serkis, through performance capture portrayed Kong and also the human character, Lumpy. The film's budget climbed from an initial US$150 million to a record-breaking $207 million. The film was released on December 14, 2005 and made an opening of $50.1 million. While the film performed lower than expectations, Kong made domestic and worldwide grosses that eventually added up to $550 million,[1] becoming the fourth-highest grossing movie in Universal Pictures history. Strong DVD sales also added over $100 million to the grosses.[2] It also received positive reviews, with some considering it one of the all-round best movies of 2005, though it has been criticised for its length at three hours and eight minutes (while a three-disc extended DVD edition actually increases this to over three hours and twenty minutes). It won Academy Awards for visual effects, sound mixing, and sound editing.
[edit] PlotThe film opens in New York City, 1933, at the height of the Great Depression. Having lost her job as a vaudeville actress, Ann Darrow is hired by troubled filmmaker Carl Denham to be an actress in his new motion picture against the famous and popular actor Bruce Baxter. With time running out, Ann signs on when she learns her favorite playwright Jack Driscoll is the screenwriter. On the SS Venture, they slowly fall in love. As for Carl, a warrant is out for his arrest and Captain Englehorn begins to have second thoughts, following the fears of his crew over the legend of Skull Island. Despite his attempt to turn around, their ship is sucked up into a fog and crashes into one of the encircling rocks. Carl and his crew explore the island, with a deserted village against a wall, but they are attacked by the vicious natives, killing two of the group. Ann screams, and a roar beyond the wall responds. The natives' matriarch vows to sacrifice Ann to "Kong". Englehorn and his crew break up the attack and return to the damaged ship. They finally lighten the load to steer away, until Jack discovers Ann has been kidnapped. On the island, Ann is hung from a balcony to the other side of a valley. The crew comes armed, but are too late. A rescue party is organized, and Captain Englehorn gives them 24 hours to find her. In the meantime, Ann discovers the remains of the previous sacrifices, and stabs Kong's hand with her ceremonial necklace, much to Kong's surprise. Hearing the sailors approaching, Kong takes Ann deeper into the jungles of the island. The rescue party is caught up in a hunt of Brontosaurus by a pack of Venatosaurus, and four of the party (including Herb, the cameraman) are killed, either crushed or torn apart by the dinosaurs, while Jack and the rest of the crew survive. Bruce Baxter and two others leave the group at this point, afraid of what's still in store. Meanwhile, Kong, too curious not to kill Ann, sets her down around some ruins to eat the nearby bamboo. Ann tries to escape once again, but Kong blocks her escape. Ann, who realizes Kong's curiosity about her, manages to entertain Kong with juggling and dancing from her old theater routine. Kong cannot bring himself to kill her when she refuses to continue, and after being humiliated during an attempt to intimidate her, leaves her by herself. The remaining members of the rescue party stumble across a log where Kong attacks, shaking them off the log into a ravine of giant insects. He returns to rescue Ann from three Vastatosaurus rex, and takes her up to his mountain lair. While there, Ann briefly attempts to communicate with Kong using sign language, but with mixed success. Jack, Preston, Jimmy, Carl, Lumpy and two others survived the attack of Kong, but Lumpy and the two crewmen were killed by the giant insects inside the pit. Fortunately Baxter had insisted on a rescue mission to Englehorn and rescues what remains of the rescue party. Jack decides to continue alone searching for Ann, while Carl plans to capture Kong in a desperate attempt to save his job. Jack comes to Kong's lair, and disturbs him from his slumber while trying to free Ann. As Kong fights a swarm of Terapusmordax giant-bats disturbed by the commotion, Ann and Jack escape by grabbing the wing of a Terapusmordax and then jumping to a river. They arrive at the village wall with the angry Kong following them, where Ann becomes distraught by what Carl plans to do. Kong bursts through the gate and struggles to get her back, but he is knocked out by chloroform. In New York around Christmas, Carl presents Kong — the Eighth Wonder of the World on Broadway. Ann opposes Kong's imprisonment so a double of her is used in the production; however Kong becomes enraged from the replacement as several camera flashes from nearby photographers who are photographing Carl and Bruce anger him further, and breaks free from his chrome-steel chains and breaks out of the theater onto Broadway. He wanders around searching for Ann by picking up several look-alikes. Jack decides to lure Kong away from the populated areas, and takes a taxi that results in a chase around New York. Kong eventually stops Jack's taxi, but Ann appears, which calms him down before he can kill Jack. They share a quiet moment on a frozen lake in Central Park before they are interrupted by the military. Kong climbs to the top of the Empire State Building, and observing the dawning day, repeats the sign for "beautiful" Ann had used in his lair, causing a shocked Ann to realize his intelligence. Before Ann is able to attempt further communication, they are again attacked and Kong makes his last stand against the Curtiss Helldivers,[3] on the summit of the observation spire, downing three of them. Ultimately Kong is hit by several bursts of gunfire from the surviving planes, and gazes at a distraught Ann for the last time before falling off the building to his death. Jack finally reaches Ann and comforts her and they plan to get married tomorrow and as the reporters run to Kong's dead body. Carl takes one last look and says, "It wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast." [edit] Cast
[edit] Production[edit] Pre-productionPeter Jackson was a nine year old in the New Zealand town of Pukerua Bay when he first saw the 1933 version of King Kong. He was in tears in front of the TV when Kong slipped off the Empire State Building.[5] At age 12 he tried to recreate the film using his parents' super-8 camera and a model of Kong made of wire and rubber with his mother's fur coat for the hair, but eventually gave up on the project.[6] In 1996, he developed a version that was in pre-production for 6–7 months, but the studio cancelled it.[7] This is most likely because of the release of Mighty Joe Young and Godzilla the same year.[6] During this time Jackson had achieved the designs of the Brontosaurus and the Venatosaurus.[6] He then began work on The Lord of the Rings trilogy.[8] No casting was ever done, but he had hoped to get either George Clooney or Robert De Niro.[9] With the overwhelming box office and critical success of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Universal contacted him during production of the second film,[6] and he was paid $20 million USD to direct this film, the highest salary Hollywood ever paid a director.[10] [edit] Screenplay developmentPeter Jackson has stated that the script significantly changed between the 1996 and 2005 drafts. He described his first rough draft as a "tongue-in-cheek comedic film with elements of Raiders of the Lost Ark and other films", and as a "monkey-farce". He has said that in retrospect, he is glad that Universal pulled the plug on this version of the film, as he was able to rework the screenplay into something better.[6] In Jackson's original 1996 draft of the script, Ann was the daughter of famed English archaeologist Lord Linwood Darrow exploring ancient ruins in Sumatra.[11] They would come into conflict with Denham during his filming, and they would uncover a hidden Kong statue and the map of Skull Island. This would indicate that the island natives were the last remnants of a cult religion that had once thrived on the mainland of Asia. Instead of a playwright, Jack was the first mate and an ex-First World War fighter pilot still struggling with the loss of his best friend, who had been killed in battle during a World War I prologue.[11] Herb the camera-man is the only supporting character in the original draft who made it to the final version. The fight between Kong and the three V. rex also changed from the original draft. In the draft, Ann is actually caught in the V. rex's jaws, where she becomes wedged, and slashed by the teeth; after the fight, Kong gets her out but she is suffering from a fever, from which she then recovers. The rewriting of the script between 1996 and 2005 involved basing the characters more closely on the 1933 ones, but adding more detail (the screenplay is not based at all on the 1976 version).[12] The process began with a nine minute animatic created by Peter Jackson and shown to the writing team, causing Philippa Boyens to cry. Jackson, alongside Christian Rivers and his team, created animatics for all the action sequences which wound up becoming the first stage in animation. The Empire State Building animatic in particular, was completely replicated in the final film.[6] [edit] Pre-productionPeter Jackson decided early on that he did not want Kong to behave like a human, and so he and his team studied hours of gorilla footage.[13] Andy Serkis, who modelled his movement, went to the London Zoo to watch the gorillas, but was unsatisfied. He ended up going to Rwanda to observe mountain gorillas in the wild with a company called Rainbow Tours. The resulting Kong is entirely a special effect, but he acts and moves very much like a real gorilla.[14] Andy Serkis in his Kong bodysuit. Apart from Kong, Skull Island is also inhabited by dinosaurs and other large fauna. However, they are not intended to replicate actual species. Instead, inspired by the works of Dougal Dixon, the designers imagined what 65 million years or more of isolated evolution might have done to dinosaurs.[6] The names of these and hundreds of other beasts are found in the book The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island. [edit] DifficultiesThe film's budget climbed from an initial US$150 million to a record-breaking $207 million,[15] making it at one point the most expensive film yet made. Universal Pictures only agreed to such an outlay after seeing a screening of the unfinished film, to which executives responded enthusiastically. Marketing and promotion costs were an estimated $60 million. The film's length also grew; originally set to be 135 minutes, it soon grew to 200, prompting Universal executives to fly to New Zealand to view a rough cut, but they liked it so their concerns were addressed.[16] Other difficulties included Peter Jackson's decision to change composers from Howard Shore to James Newton Howard seven weeks before the film opened.[17] [edit] ReleaseThe marketing campaign for King Kong started in full swing on June 27, 2005, when the teaser trailer made its debut, first online at the official Volkswagen website at 8:45 p.m. EST, then 8:55 p.m. EST across media outlets owned by NBC Universal (the parent of Universal Studios), including NBC, Bravo!, CNBC and MSNBC. That trailer appeared in theatres attached to War of the Worlds, which opened on June 29.[4] Jackson also regularly published a series of 'Production Diaries', which chronicled the making of the film. The diaries started shortly after the DVD release of The Return of the King as a way to give Jackson's The Lord of the Rings fans a glimpse of his next project. These diaries are edited into broadband-friendly instalments of three or four minutes each. They consist of features that would normally be seen in a making-of documentary: a tour of the set, a roving camera introducing key players behind the scene, a peek inside the sound booth during last-minute dubbing, or Andy Serkis doing his ape movements in a motion capture studio.[18] The production diaries were released on DVD on December 13, 2005, one day before the U.S. release of the film. This was one of the first occasions in which material that would normally be considered supplementary to the DVD release of a film, was not only released separately, but done so in a prestige format; the Production Diaries came packaged in a box with a set of prints and a replica 1930s-era clipboard.[citation needed] It is also the first time such material was published prior to the release of the film.[citation needed] A novelisation of the movie and a prequel entitled The Island of the Skull was also written. A multi-platform video game entitled Peter Jackson's King Kong was released, which featured an alternate ending. There was a hardback book entitled The World of Kong, featuring artwork from Weta Workshop to describe the fictional bestiary in the film. A number of spin-offs from the remake's franchise include books, novels, comics and video games. [edit] Reception The billboard at the Odeon Leicester Square premiere With a take of $9.7 million on its Wednesday opening day, and an opening weekend of $50.1 million, King Kong did not meet expectations of Universal Pictures executives. Some media outlets even considered the film to be a flop after its weak opening weekend, as at that point it was not on pace to make back its $207 million budget.[19] Its opening weekend of $50.1 million, while good for most movies, fell short of the inflated expectations caused by the movie's enormous budget and marketing campaign. However, King Kong was able to hold its audience in the subsequent holiday weeks and ended up becoming a domestic hit, grossing $218.1 million at the North American box office (putting it in the top five grossing films of 2005 domestically).[20] King Kong fared much better in the international market, as it grossed $332.437 million outside North America, leading to a worldwide total of $550.517 million (putting it in the top five grossing films of 2005 worldwide).[21] Other factors also affect a film's profitability besides box office sales, such as the DVD sales. King Kong, sold over $100 million worth of DVDs in the largest six-day performance in Universal Studios history.[22] As of April 3, 2006, King Kong has sold more than 7.5 million DVDs, accumulating over $140 million worth of sales numbers, domestically alone.[23] As of June 25, 2006 King Kong has generated almost $38 million from DVD rental gross.[24]. As well, in February 2006, Universal received $26.5 million from TNT/TBS and ABC for the television rights to the film.[25] Thus, despite the film's inauspicious start at the box office, King Kong turned out to be very profitable. Ticket and DVD sales combined, the film earned well over $700 million,[26][27] becoming the fourth-highest grossing movie in Universal Pictures history. [edit] Critical reactionKing Kong received a favourable critical response, garnering an 83% "Certified Fresh" approval rating among 'T-Meter Critics', and a 76% rating among 'Top Critics' on Rotten Tomatoes.[28] The most common criticisms of the film were due to excessive length, lack of pace, over-use of slow motion, and some obvious use of CGI effects. Positive critical reviews regarded it as one of the few good epics and all-round best movies of 2005. Roger Ebert gave the movie four stars, and listed it as the 8th best film of 2005.[29] Similarly, King Kong has been included in many critics' Top Ten of 2005 lists.[30] The film received four Academy Award nominations for Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and Art Direction, winning all but the last.[31] Entertainment Weekly called the depiction of Kong the most convincing computer generated character in film in 2005.[32] Some criticised the film for retaining racist stereotypes present in the original film, though it was not suggested that Jackson had done this intentionally.[33] King Kong ranks 450th on Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.[34] [edit] Possible futurePeter Jackson has expressed his desire to remaster the film in 3-D at some point in the future.[35] Jackson was also seen shooting with a 3-D camera at times during the shoot of King Kong.[36] [edit] Cinematic and literary allusionsJamie Bell's character is repeatedly shown reading Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, a novel about a journey into a primitive land and mankind's exploitation of fellow man. Jack Black and critics have noted Carl Denham's similarity to Orson Welles.[37] When Jack Driscoll is searching for a place to sleep in the animal storage hold, a box behind him reads Sumatran Rat Monkey — Beware the bite! - a reference to the creature that causes mayhem in Peter Jackson's film Braindead (1992)[38] (in that film, the rat monkey is described as only being found on Skull Island). [edit] References to other versions of King Kong
[edit] Musical score
The musical score for King Kong was composed by James Newton Howard. Originally Howard Shore, who worked for Peter Jackson on The Lord of the Rings, was to compose the score for the film and recorded several completed cues before he was removed from the project by Jackson. James Newton Howard joined the project with literally weeks to score and record more than three hours of music.[citation needed] Shore still makes a cameo appearance as the ill-fated conductor in the theatre from which Kong escapes. The film's record album was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. [edit] Track listing
[edit] Home mediaKing Kong was released on DVD on March 28, 2006 in the United States. The three versions that came out were single disc fullscreen, single disc widescreen and a 2-Disc Widescreen Special Edition. The second disc of the Special Edition contains the remainder of almost all the KongisKing.net production diaries not contained on the Peter Jackson's Production Diaries DVD set. The only missing episode is "13 Weeks To Go" which contained footage of Howard Shore recording the original score. It is still available on the website. The 3 disc Deluxe Extended Edition was released on November 14, 2006 in the U.S.A.,[39] and on November 1 in Australia.[40] Thirteen minutes were put back into the film, and a further 40 minutes presented alongside the rest of the special features. The film was spread onto the first two discs with commentary by Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens, and some featurettes on Discs 1 and 2, whilst the main Special Features are on Disc 3. Another set was released, including a WETA figurine of a bullet-ridden Kong scaling the Empire State Building, roaring at the army with Ann in hand. The extended film amounts to 201 minutes in total.[41] A special HD DVD version of King Kong was part of a promotional pack for the release of the external HD DVD Drive for the Xbox 360. The pack contained the HD DVD drive, the Universal Media Remote and King Kong on HD DVD.[42] It was also available separately as a standard HD DVD.[43] The film's theatrical and extended cuts were released together on Blu-ray Disc on January 20, 2009.[44] [edit] Extended Edition scenesThe extended edition has 13 minutes of footage reincorporated into the film, over 230 new visual effects shots, and 40 minutes of deleted scenes on the DVD. The first major addition comes after the rescue team enters the jungle, in which they startle a Ceratopsian dinosaur and it goes on the rampage. Hayes shoots it and the scene ends on a reference to the original film as Carl and Herb film its tail in death throes. The second major addition is a scene in the swamp where the rescue team on two rafts are first surrounded by swarms of Scorpiopede creatures, before an attack from an enormous serpentine Piranhadon fish (this is briefly seen in the teaser for the film). Three men are killed and Jack almost drowns. Carl captures the last death on camera (to the disgust of Lumpy) which he takes great pains to retain in the chaos. After exiting the swamp, Lumpy shoots an approaching sound in the thick foliage. Jack believes he has shot Ann, which turns out to be a large bird similar to a giant Moa (which may have been Jackson's fictional "Brutornis"). The insect pit sequence is extended with footage of the characters climbing out of the pit, notably including a monologue from Carl about the point of death, Jimmy finding Hayes's body and taking his cap to remember him, and Bruce Baxter killing more insects. There is also more film of Kong rampaging the native village. Kong chasing Jack's cab is extended. During the army's attack on King Kong, he tramples a van containing a man who issues the fire command, and also knocks a van, with a commander insulting Kong, out of his way. The rest of the deleted scenes have unfinished effects, and are not incorporated into the film, but remain on the DVD set with individual introductions by Peter Jackson. [edit] References
[edit] External links
Categories: 2005 films | American films | Best Sound Editing Academy Award winners | Film remakes | Films directed by Peter Jackson | Films that won the Best Visual Effects Academy Award | 2000s adventure films | Films set in New York City | King Kong films | New Zealand films | Universal Pictures films | Films set in the 1930s | Films that won the Best Sound Mixing Academy Award | Monster movies | Dinosaur films | WingNut Films productions | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ↑ top of page ↑ | about thumbshots |