The KING KONG Retrospective: The Fall & Rise of Film's Founding Monster

In the history of monster movies, few franchises have had as big of an impact, or as strange of a journey, as King Kong. Maybe the most famous movie monster ever made, Kong sprung out of the imaginations of Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, and Willis O’Brien and onto the silver screen in 1933 in a story of adventure, terror, and tragedy, becoming a pillar of blockbuster Hollywood filmmaking. But what was once a story with a definitive end soon gained unending life. Over nearly a century o

f film, King Kong has been reborn and reinterpreted again and again, shifting from international reimaginings to cinematic universe ambitions. To date, King Kong has been the star of 10 live action films, with massive gaps, changes in rights, and vastly different films that, while reiterating on the same ideas over and over, have massively different outlooks on both the meaning of the story of Kong and the technology used to bring him to life. Here, we’ll explore the entirety of King Kong’s live

action film history, spanning from his depression-era death to his kaiju hero’s journey and the many strange detours in between. So join me as we journey through the never-ending rise, fall, and rise of the king. — The story of King Kong begins with the larger than life story of Merian C Cooper. Cooper, born in 1893, was an American adventurer who seemed to commit his life to being a pioneer in every way imaginable. A bomber pilot in World War 1, a volunteer and prisoner of war in the Polish-So

viet War, a world-travelling researcher, Cooper was a documentarian making travelogs with his friend and fellow filmmaker Ernest B Shoedsack before coming up with the idea for King Kong. Cooper’s idea for Kong came from blending his many different passions and inspirations together for a story that typified a mythological approach to nature and exploration, realistic in its travelog ideas but fantastical in its actual subject. The book “Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa” had inspi

red Cooper at an early age to be an explorer, but also contained the fantastical story of massive apes carrying off women from villages. A 1926 expedition to the East Indies funded by the American Museum of Natural History brought back two Komodo Dragons to the Bronx Zoo, only for the animals to die in captivity. The film’s script would go through multiple evolutions, with Edgar Wallace writing a draft based on Cooper’s ideas, which was then rewritten by James Creelman, and finally rewritten aga

in by Ruth Rose, Schoedsack’s wife, who created diaglouge including the film’s famous last words and turned Carl Denham and Jack Driscoll into essentially versions of Cooper and Schoedsact. However, no studio wanted anything to do with Cooper’s ambitious and unclassifiable project except for David O. Selznick, Head of Production at RKO Radio Pictures. ​​"David played one vital part,” said Cooper. “He was the only human being that backed me up 100 percent. He didn't know what the hell I was doing

. Everyone thought it was nuts. And everybody wanted me to put a man in a gorilla suit. And it would have been just horrible." At one point, Cooper imagined making Kong by capturing a gorilla in the wild and having it fight a komodo dragon. For the sake of good film and animal rights, that idea was thankfully scrapped when RKO’s stop motion animator Willis O’Brien came on board. O’Brien and previously worked on making a dinosaur film titled Creation, but this was scrapped after 20 minutes of foo

tage were made, with multiple sequences making their way into King Kong. Kong’s story is relatively simple, but it’s told with a massive scope that changes dramatically across its 3 acts, starting with the assembling of our movie cast and boat crew and the journey Skull Island, is a wild chase through the jungle, as the crew pursues Anne when she’s been taken by Kong. The pace here is absolutely relentless and its often easy to forget that this film is nearly a century old as creature after crea

ture are thrown at our rapidly dwindling band of heroes, showing Kong to not be the only danger on this time capsule of the prehistoric age. And finally, the film reaches its most iconic moments in the third act, as the captured Kong is put on display on Broadway and quickly begins rampaging across New York. With Cooper and Schoedsack both directing and O’Brien in charge of bringing it all to life, King Kong is a cavalcade of special effects. Of course, Kong, an 18-inch puppet, is brought to lif

e through stop motion animation, but so is every other fantastical creature and dinosaur, with Cooper acting out the scenes to help O’Brien overcome the massive challenges of the production. These were blended together with actors through matte paintings and rear projection, timing movements in sync with pre-existing footage. And of course there’s the giant hand to help Wray actually have some interaction with the ape. Every Kong scene is a marvel, but his fight with the T-Rex in particular is i

ncredible, showcasing the amount of personality O’Brien gave his creation, augmented by the unintended byproduct of Kong’s fur constantly moving from O’Brien’s fingerprints. One of the most socially resonant elements of Cooper’s story is its Great Depression setting. By the time of its release in 1933, the United States was at the nadir of the Depression, with 24.9% of the nation's total workforce unemployed and President Roosevelt’s New Deal policies yet to take effect. That desperation in King

Kong is most acutely felt by Anne Darrow, who is plucked off the streets of New York to star in director Carl Denham’s new film, traveling to the mysterious Skull Island for an exotic locale. While it’s only a small aspect of the film, the contrast of everyday desperation and the glitz and glamor that Denham and crew attempt to achieve makes the sense of escapism that King Kong the movie provided to audiences part of the movie itself. So when Kong begins rampaging through New York, he brings ev

erything and everyone crashing back down to the reality they hoped to escape. As for Kong himself, the underlying themes of the film have been debated for about as long as it’s existed. Given that the film was made during the height of the Great Migration, where millions of African Americans moved out of the south and into cities around the world, and that Kong is worshiped by and connected to an African tribe, the film’s commentary on racial tensions have been considered by many. And if Kong is

a metaphor for black people in America, is the film judging them to be uncivilized or exploited by the US? Is Kong’s fate a commentary on what must change in the 20th century or an acceptance of the way things are? Personally, I find that the original King Kong is presenting these ideas without making a firm judgment while still lamenting Kong’s death. After all, “it was beauty that killed the beast.” Every new film since has had to deal with this underlying idea. Beyond its story, King Kong es

tablishes certain recurring elements that are touched on by nearly every film that follows, and it's the changes made that help differentiate these updates on well-worn themes. How sympathetic is Kong? Is he more rampaging beast or misunderstood creature? What is his relationship to our male and female leads and do they understand him? How fantastical is Kong’s home island? What are the natives’ relationship to the giant ape? What do our humans want with him? And what is the ultimate fate of Kon

g? In Cooper’s film, Kong, while being an incredible monster creation, is much more of a rampaging animal, full of rage, prone to eating people, and wanting Ann for himself because of how beautiful and strange she is to him. As a result, Ann and Jack don’t have a relationship with him, in fact, they spend most of the time trying to get away from him. Skull Island is essentially the most dangerous place on Earth, with the native tribe’s wall not just keeping Kong out, but all sorts of dinosaurs,

giant bugs (a deleted scene lost to time forever), and other creatures out while they still worship Kong as their god. Of course, the big third act development is Kong’s capture and display in New York when Denham chooses him to be his claim to fame. And like those komodo dragons in the Bronx Zoo, Kong’s run-in with civilization leads to his death. King Kong was a massive hit when it was released on March 2, 1933 , opening to a then record-breaking $90,000 opening weekend and making $5.3 million

against its $675,000 budget. Cooper’s gamble had paid off, and its risky pioneering effects made the film into something audiences had never seen before. King Kong would inspire generations of filmmakers for decades to come, helping creators to not only remake or homage Cooper’s movie, but to become passionate about and pursue a career in filmmaking that was clearly illustrated to them in the pioneering but obvious effects of King Kong. However, the first real product of its legacy is not much

more than a strange footnote. — With RKO’s demand for a follow-up superseding everything else at the studio and Cooper now their production chief, the film that would be named Son of Kong was rushed into production. Written by Ruth Rose and directed by a returning Schoedsack, Son of Kong premiered on December 22, 1933, a little more than 9 months after the original hit theaters. And while there’s some interesting ideas and it’s overall fun enough, the short production schedule and smaller budget

are obvious in every aspect. It’s also barely an hour long, not really enough time for our characters or their quest to have much interesting happening. Plain and simple, Son of Kong has cash-in written all over it and is definitive proof that the half-assed profit-seeking sequel is nothing new in movies. Here, the film picks up with Carl Denham, now our true lead, broke and facing countless lawsuits and charges due to his responsibility for King Kong’s rampage. In search of a way forward, Denh

am eventually hits two critical discoveries - 1, that there is a secret treasure on Skull Island and 2, a new female lead, this time his love interest for the picture. After a rather meandering first half, we return to Skull Island, with our crew quickly encountering another giant ape - this time a younger, much smaller white one, with Denham presuming that this is Kong’s son and feeling some guilt over what he did to his father in New York. Son of Kong is largely forgotten to time, and for good

reason. Absolutely nothing here stacks up to the original. Not its story. Not its effects. Not its creatures. Not its romance. And its creators knew they couldn’t match the original either, with Rose saying, "If you can't make it bigger, make it funnier." And Son of Kong plays a lot lighter than the original, not that it really helps all that much. O’Brien returns here for the film’s effects, but with so little time spent on Skull Island, he’s mostly bringing Kong Jr to life, who becomes the an

tithesis to his big bad dad. With a sudden massive earthquake/hurricane combo sinking the entirety of Skull Island and Little Kong sacrificing himself to save Denham, the Kong story is truly over with every recognizable element gone forever. Son of Kong was a box office disappointment, not gaining that fast cash they hoped to achieve by riding the coattails of the original and making $616,000 against its $269,000 budget. With Kong, his son, and Skull Island gone, it would be nearly 30 years unti

l King Kong would return in an unlikely country. — And this is where we get to a vital but complicated aspect of Kong’s film history - production rights. Ok strap in. When Merian C Cooper sold King Kong to RKO, he struck a deal that let him retain the rights to Kong, however, the director was never able to get another Kong movie made after Son, instead producing the Kong-adjacent Mighty Joe Young in 1949, which helped launch the career of stop motion extraordinaire Ray Harryhausen. By the early

1960s, Willis O’Brien was interested in bringing Kong back himself, approaching RKO, now a largely defunct company, and their attorney Daniel O’Shea for the rights to make King Kong vs Frankenstein. O’Brien’s search for an interested studio eventually led him to Toho in Japan, who had found success in monsters years earlier with Godzilla. Toho was interested in making a Kong movie, they just weren’t interested in working with O’Brien, so the studio and attorney O’Shea went behind O’Brien’s back

and made a deal directly with RKO, paving the way for King Kong vs Godzilla. Cooper, however, got wind of the project and sued on the basis of RKO giving him the rights. However, the documents proving the deal had been lost to time and Toho was free to move forward with their film. Premiering in 1962, the film, directed by Ishiro Honda and written by Shinichi Sekizawa, is the third ever Godzilla film and seven years after the disappointment that is Godzilla Raids Again. It’s also a distinct new

direction for the King of the Monsters, creating a much lighter and more family friendly tone that would go on to define the rest of the Showa Era in a film that sees the head of a pharmaceutical company and television producer search for a new sensation to boost ratings. The answer? A giant monkey living on Faro Island, with Shoichi Hirose as the first ever suitmation King Kong. Meanwhile, Godzilla is freed from his iceberg by a nuclear sub and heads straight for Tokyo. The only way to save Jap

an is to drop Kong, who is frequently drugged by special island juice, direckedly into Godzilla path. King Kong looks like they pulled him outta the dumpster behind Toho’s office. Both the original Japanese and American releases are deeply silly movies on purpose. The major difference between these two is, like most of the US versions, the American release by Universal Pictures is slightly shorter, excising scenes that aren’t immediately connected to Godzilla or Kong, and adding in scenes where

a scientist explains what’s happening or what the military is planning to do next. It is, like most US dubs of the time, an example of total lack of faith in both the movie and the viewer. That being said, there’s not that much of a difference in the general experience of either version of King Kong vs Godzilla, as ultimately, this is about the two monsters colliding while also satirizing television and news coverage of the time. Toho’s interpretation of Kong has very little to do with the origi

nal beyond an island and a big monkey on a rampage, but it does continue the idea of men foolishly thinking they can control and profit from Kong. Here, it’s Mr Tako, a goofy dumbass who must eventually accept that he can’t control Kong, which is made even more difficult because this Kong gets suped up by electricity, evening the odds after getting his butt beat repeatedly by Goji. With a box office of 352 million yen, Kong Kong vs Godzilla was the second largest movie ever in Japan at the time,

and another Toho film was a guarantee. — Toho’s search for a Kong sequel hit more snags than you might expect. A straightforward King Kong vs Godzilla 2 was written but scrapped to instead bring in Mothra. Behind the scenes conflict turned the meant to be the Kong-starring Ebirah Horror of the Deep into a Godzilla movie. Meanwhile, animation producers Rankin and Bass had begun making The King Kong Show as a joint US-Japan creation. Toho soon agreed to a partial live action remake of the show an

d created Ishiro Honda’s King Kong Escapes, or King Kong’s Counterattack in Japanese, directed by Ishirō Honda and written by Takeshi Kimura. So the movie isn’t really a sequel to vs Godzilla. And it doesn’t really have anything to do with the cartoon. But it does have MechaniKong. So I guess that’s something. Now Kong is a resident of Mondo Island who’s kidnapped by an evil scientist when his own mecha ape malfunctions while digging for the radioactive Element X. So yeah I guess we’re gonna giv

e Kong radiation poisoning or something. There’s a woman Kong likes and he sorta has a dinosaur fight with Gorosaurus, but this entire movie is nonsense. This would be the end of Kong’s time at Toho, as their license expired before they could put him in Destroy All Monsters. Kong’s time in tokusatsu is strange and mostly at odds with his classic interpretations, but it would plant the seeds for his revival a half-century later. — By the early 70s, both Universal and Paramount Pictures began purs

uing their own simultaneous remakes of King Kong, with RKO, already one to play fast and loose with rights to their ape, indulging both in their pursuits. And this leads us to the most outlandish character in this entire saga - Dino DeLaurentiis. Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis would have his name on more than 500 movies over the course of his nearly-70 year career, moving from Italian films in the 50s and into major US productions by the 70s. De Laurentiis was always in search of the next h

uge success, shrugging off losses and largely devaluing any actor or director in favor of the big picture, and the result was that De Laurentiis’s career constantly veered between critical and commercial hits and embarrassing disasters that often doubled down on franchises without an eye on quality. De Laurentiis, in conjunction with Paramount, had paid RKO for the rights to Kong and began putting together his remake, However, Universal claimed they had already been given a verbal agreement by R

KO to make their own version. Paramount and Universal began to butt heads, with Universal announcing their own production of The Legend of King Kong in the hopes it would cause Paramount to stop their own film. But they didn’t count on Dino, who decided to rush his remake into production to ensure his written contract with RKO would be enforced. Soon, a 1976 court case over ownership rights resulted in the estate of Merian C Cooper, who had passed in 73, finally, legally getting the rights back

to the “name, story, and character” of his creation and owed RKO’s profits from their past licensing, while RKO still owned the original film. It gets a little more complicated. The Cooper estate quickly sold the rights to Kong to Universal, who have owned them ever since, but De Laurentiis’ film was allowed by the courts to be released without Universal’s approval. As such, Universal put their own remake on hold, which we’ll get back to decades later. In addition, the original novelization of K

ing Kong, published in 1932 to hype up the movie, had fallen into public domain, meaning that aspects of the story could be remade by anyone now while Universal still held partial legal ownership. Anyway. The King Kong remake from 1976! Directed by John Guillermin and written by Lorenzo Semple Jr, with many elements including its modern day setting and World Trade Center climax dictated by De Laurentiis, the film sees the Petrox Oil Company discover a new island in their search for oil, only to

have their expedition disrupted by Jeff Bridges as stowaway Jack Prescott, here a primate paleontologist, and Jessica Lange as Dwan, an actress whose boat exploded. No I’m not from New Jersey, her name is Dwan. (d w a n scene) Cue island, monkey, rescue, New York rampage. Kong 73 repeats specific beats from O’Brien’s classic, like the log attack and the New York chaos. Most importantly, it keeps the central story of star crossed lovers intact. Oh and Jack’s here, too. IM JOKING. But seriously th

is monkey and lady both want each other. Dino would proclaim his film to be, "the greatest love story ever made," and say, “No one cry when Jaws die. But when the monkey die, people gonna cry. Intellectuals gonna love Kong. Even film buffs who love the first Kong gonna love ours. Why? Because I no give them crap.” That’s a quote to TIME MAGAZINE. And to that end, the remake is much more romantic and sympathetic to Kong, while also being less operatic in tone, with our mysterious island having no

other outlandish wildlife outside of one big snake. Like the original, DeLaurentiis’s Kong also came in the midst of a national crisis, as the production happened shortly after the 1973 oil crisis, where OPEC’s total oil embargo of the US and other countries caused prices to soar and gas availability to plummet. The scarcity of oil and its control over US politics is a major element of the entire film’s motivation. There’s a very obvious ecological focus to this Kong story, as Jack is not just

a paleontologist with much more sympathy toward the ape than the original, but our main human antagonist is an oil company executive, played by the late great Charles Grodin, who has come to the island in search of new land to drill. Kong is just a happy accident for him that he exploits when there’s no oil to be found. Even Kong’s New York showcase is a reminder of the oil exploitation, as the monkey is trotted out in a giant gas pump for his grand reveal. Worldwide education about and research

into the animal kingdom and primatology spearheaded by researchers like Jane Goodall had come a long way since the days of the original Kong. Fierce and mysterious jungle creatures were no longer valued simply for being a prized trophy, but were the subjects of conservation and restoration. King Kong 73 is a crude representation of that, but still it’s an attitude that turns the ape from a raging mythic monster into a complex animal. To bring Kong to life, special effects artists Carlo Rambaldi

and Rick Baker collaborated on what was meant to be an ambitious new creation. However, De Laurentiis rushing the film into production also kneecapped his artists. Rambaldi’s 40 foot tall, 6.5 ton, $1.7 million animatronic Kong, at first planned to be the main way the ape was brought to life, basically didn’t work. The animatronic makes up less than a minute of screen time, with the rest being Baker in costume. Baker was so unhappy with the end product that he gave all credit to Rambaldi, who h

elped salvage the film by puppeteering the mask’s facial animatronics. There’s clearly shortcomings to the 76 film’s effects. The green screening is terrible, but I still think the costume works thanks to good lighting and the overall performance. The scope and scale of the entire film helps offset those issues, even if the obvious man in a costume of it all is, like the Toho films, a major source of cheese in what is otherwise trying to be a prestige picture. 76’s ending is even more tragic tha

n the original, as Kong is more sympathetic, purposefully putting Dwan down to protect her from helicopter fire atop the then-newly opened Twin Towers. His death is bloody and brutal, and instead of the romantic sign off of the original, Jack and Dwan stay divided by a mob of photographers who surround her and ignore the bloody beast behind, hinting that these two will always be separated by their experience. With a $23 million budget, King Kong would go on to make $90 million worldwide, solid b

ut below the $150 million that DeLaurentiis wanted. Still, the producer wasn’t ready to let go of the property he’d fought to capture. — Like most Kong movies, the 76 remake ends with the king dead. Despite that, a direct sequel would be made by DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group, which the producer founded in 1984, and Dino, never one to pass up milking his movies for every cent or making bold claims to get attention from the press, had almost immediately said there would be a sequel, saying “Ste

ve McQueen made a picture in which he died at the end, but they made another picture with Steve McQueen. Many stars die at the end of a picture and then go on to the next picture. Kong is a star. We are going to have a new story, a new Kong." Look, I don’t know what this dude is talking about but the point was despite Kong being deader than half my friends’ YouTube channels, he was coming back. Over the course of the next decade, DeLaurentiis searched for the right idea on how to bring his monke

y back to life, with writer Steve Pressfield revealing, "They had King Kong in Russia and King Kong in outer space. Really, this is not an exaggeration. They even had one with little kids leading him around, saying things like 'Careful, Kong, don't step on that car.' It really was an embarrassment." Well Steve, you’re one to talk because you wrote King Kong Lives, directed by a returning John Guillermin and written by Ronald Shussett and Steve Pressfield. The belated sequel hinges on the double

reveal that Kong is alive but has been in a coma for ten years and that there is indeed a female Kong out there. Soon, giant monkey doctor Amy Franklin, Linder Hamilton, and adventurer Hank Mitchell, Brian Kerwin, must bring these two together to save Kong’s life. But a post-op Kong escapes, leading to a battle with a crazed general and his troops to protect Lady Kong and their soon to be born offspring. That all sounds ridiculous in that bad but entertaining schlock kinda of way, but the truth

is that this movie is REAL boring. Once the monkey heart surgery starts, complete with giant chainsaws, big old clamps, and construction equipment used to replace a giant heart, you know this whole thing is cooked. Production was a nightmare too, with Guillermin grief-stricken and erratic from the recent death of his son, disappearing for days and replaced mid-shoot by documentary filmmaker Charles McCracken. Years after the film, Hamilton revealed, “I was stunned when I saw it. It was the most

ridiculous movie. While we were filming I never saw one full-size Kong, only a hand or a foot, as I was acting against huge blue screens most of the time. It was a hoot when I finally saw those monkeys flirt and bat their eyes. Then it horrified me for being so stupid." Kong does, eventually, bite it, but not before he smashes the military and briefly meets his offspring. I don't think you’ll be surprised to learn that King Kong Lives was a flop, opening in 12th place in its opening weekend and

making only $4.7 million. The flop, alongside several other concurrent failures, pushed the DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group into bankruptcy. The production company was officially dead by 1989 while DeLaurentiis himself would produce films into the 2000s. And despite Universal now free from competition over Kong, this embarrassing failure would keep studios away for years. — In the time since purchasing Kong, Universal had leveraged the property with the King Kong Encounter attraction in Univers

al Studios Hollywood and Kongfrontation ride in Universal Studios Florida. And by the 1990s, the studio was finally ready to proceed with their own remake, signing on director Peter Jackson, who had impressed the studio with his work on The Frighteners. Jackson is a self-proclaimed life-long King Kong fan, making his own Super 8 stop motion recreations of the film as a kid and crediting the movie as the reason he pursued a career in film. Jackson and wife Fran Walsh wrote the remake’s screenplay

in 1996 and began working with special effects studio Weta Workshop. This remake would bring Kong and the many dangerous inhabitants of Skull Island to life with CGI, stop motion, and animatronics. However, when Universal realized that their Kong remake would be competing with both TriStar’s Godzilla and the remake of Mighty Joe Young, they pulled the plug on Kong in February 1997. I’m sure you know what comes next. Now released from his commitment, Jackson moved on to make the Lord of the Ring

s for New Line and its success brought Universal back to the director and his work with Weta. King Kong was back on and by the time it was released in 2005, its story, Jackson’s creative control, and the world of visual effects had majorly evolved. The end result is a 3 hour and 7 minute long remake, taking place in 1933 and costing $207 million, following Cooper’s original beat by beat, but ballooning the details, action, characters, and themes to massive proportions. Really, there’s no point i

n detailing the plot, as it’s the same as what came before, with Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow, a vaudeville actress swept off on the Skull Island expedition, Jack Black as director Carl Denham, Adrien Brody as love interest Jack Driscoll, now a screenwriter, and Andy Serkis as Kong, providing the motion capture techniques that he used for Gollum in Lord of the Rings. Jackson’s movie works to really add a lot of motivation and backstory to each character, which it accomplishes with some of the most

obvious dialogue you ever done heard. Meanwhile, it’s so indebted to the original that they even mention Faye and Cooper working on their own movie. Everything is really well done here. This is top of the line CGI, sets, costumes, high quality actors, big score, massive scope, it’s all there and still looks remarkable nearly 20 years later. You can really tell that Jackson and Universal were going all out here, no reservations, but the massive size and its really over the top sometimes bloated n

ature works well in some instances, and really not in others. The approach to the whole movie is taking every idea from the original and doing it way bigger and going on for way longer. It’s funny how this movie from 2005 is more melodramatic than the original. Cheesier too. You liked King Kong fighting a dinosaur? Well what if he fought 3??? Want more of Ann and Kong? How about an impromptu Central Park ice skating sequence??? In the wake of Jackson’s massive Rings movies that only got bigger w

ith each entry, most every Kong set piece has like 4 more extenuating circumstances than you’d expect. It’s a hat on top of a hat on top of another hat that has the picture of a hat on it. After 70 years of Kong in pop culture, Jackson’s take on the king is much more romantic and sympathetic. Having him be essentially a gigantic silverback gorilla makes him more pure animal than most other interpretations, transposing modern understanding of animal behavior onto a less caring 30s period piece se

tting. Jackson and Walsh also devote much more of the film to developing Kong and Anne’s relationship, helping them understand each other and become a more symbiotic pair, with Anne eventually getting him to sign with her and recognize beauty while he tries to impress her. Kong even negs Anne after the dino fight. When did Skull Island get a copy of the game??? The romanticism of Kong, Anne, and Jack’s side is contrasted with Jackson leaning into horror on the other, playing up the dangers of Sk

ull Island, with giant dinosaurs and the most horrifying bug sequence ever made, bringing to life a lost deleted scene from the original where-Oh yuck let’s just skip this. This is also probably a good place to talk about the depiction of island natives in Kong’s movies. The Skull Island natives of Cooper’s original film are, unsurprisingly, extremely stereotypical depictions of Africans despite Skull Island being in Indonesia. They see Kong as God, paint themselves to look like apes, and sacrif

ice women to him out of their ignorance and faith. King Kong vs Godzilla’s islanders are similar, but don’t sacrifice women, that’s an improvement. The 76 islanders are essentially the same as the original, including their ape dress and worship, which is still a terrible way to characterize black natives. And the islanders of Jackson’s film are some of the most insane shit ever. They’re crazed, murderous, mud-dwelling, black-face-wearing possible cannibals. They’re worse than animals, they’re ba

sically Lord of the Rings Orcs??? and that’s a really messed up depiction. Merian C Cooper ain’t got nothing on this level of fucked up native representation. Look, I already know that this is the internet and there’s gonna be a bunch of people who go “boo woke bullshit” but talking about how people of color are represented in stories that are largely about white adventurers entering an untouched land and enslaving their god is clearly touching on centuries of colonization, slavery, and racism,

whether the filmmakers intended to or not. That’s just the reality of entertainment reflecting history and worldviews, especially as fantasy and pseudo-real travelogs intersect. Kong’s death is very emotional, really lingering on his love for Anne and the inevitability of being killed, with Jack Black signing the movie off when Faye Wray passed away before she could film a cameo. Jackson’s Kong would make $556.9 million, the fifth highest grossing film of 2005 and in its wake, Universal used the

film as the basis for 2 more theme park rides and a video game, securing its own unique, copyrighted take on King Kong amidst its spiraling rights madness long before new life would once again come to Skull Island. — After Jackson’s remake, Universal Pictures intended to make a prequel titled “Skull Island,” with Adam Wingard to direct. At the time, the film would have been co-distributed by Universal and Legendary, but have nothing to do with Godzilla, who they had acquired the rights to in 20

10. In fact, Legendary was far enough along in their Skull Island plans that they showed a teaser trailer at San Diego Comic Con in 2014, with very few details attached to the project at the time. However, following the success of Godzilla in 2014, Legendary became intent on making a new Godzilla vs King Kong movie happen within the scope of a cinematic universe inspired by the success of Marvel Studios. To make it happen, Legendary broke their distribution deal with Universal, moved Skull Islan

d to Warner Bros, dropped Jackson and Wingard from the project, and wrote a new version of what would become “Kong: Skull Island” with Max Borenstein, who also wrote Godzilla 2014, in the hopes of making the kaiju battle climax happen. Universal, happy to focus on their own Dark Universe, was willing to let the monkey go. Woops! Ok wait what. Hold on, more rights stuff. See, remember how I told you that RKO retained the rights to the original film? Well, Warner Bros finally bought the original K

ong and much of RKO’s library in 1996, so both Universal and Warner can make Kong movies. Sorry, my brain is melting. Soon, Jordan Vogt-Roberts was brought onboard to direct, who pitched moving the film from 1917 to the end of the Vietnam War to help differentiate it from past Kong movies. With the new direction came several new drafts by multiple writers and the debut of the film in 2017. Written by Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, and Derek Connolly, Kong: Skull Island takes place in 1973 and place

s Kong squarely within the Monsterverse established by Godzilla 2014, as titan-researching organization Monarch commandeers a US Army unit to explore Skull Island as the Vietnam War is coming to a close. Of course, what they don’t realize is that the island is watched over by Kong, who is worshiped by the natives and protects his home from the giant lizards known as Skullcrawlers. Kong’s conflict with the military causes Lieutenant Colonel Packard, played by Samuel L Jackson, to seek revenge whi

le tracker James Conrad, Tom Hiddleston, and photographer Mason Weaver, Brie Larson, try to stop this mini-war. So I guess Kong is the Viet Cong. Or the innocent Vietnamese? Or maybe US soldiers drafted into a war they didn’t want to fight? Skull Island throws about every Vietnam War cliche into the mix with its monster iconography and the result is fun if pretty obvious. You know, napalm, Credence, helicopters, all the stock soldier characters. And then they get smashed by an ape. Given that Sk

ull Island was made with the express purpose to set up a Godzilla crossover, there are several major changes made here to the King and his story. Visually, this Kong looks a lot more like the original but way taller, now reaching 104 feet as a still-growing adolescent whereas the original Kong varied between 18 and 24 feet. He’s also a lot more expressly heroic, acting as a protector for the island and contrasted against the disturbing skullcrawlers and the increasingly insane Colonel Packard. W

e also learn that his parents were killed by the skullcrawlers, giving him shades of a superhero origin. Meanwhile, Skull Island is about as dangerous as the original, but equally beautiful while Conrad and Weaver become sympathetic to Kong’s fight, forming a sort of mutual understanding in the face of danger. It’s also the only solo Kong movie that doesn’t see him captured and taken off his island, with Kong actually defeating the representatives of civilization and asserting nature’s dominance

. Given that Monsterverse Kong is more in line with kaiju archetypes instead of his typical tragic creature feature interpretations, it’s not surprising, as these monsters have always represented ideas, dangers, and disasters that are bigger than humanity and never truly able to be controlled. Kong’s strength and heroism would be further explored in sequels, but here he’s still very dangerous, prone to opening wide and eating a dude whole like Shaggy and a sandwich or simply crushing someone und

erfoot. With a budget of $185 million and a box office of $568.6 million, the biggest of the entire Monsterverse so far, its success helped offset the financial disappointment of “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” to pave the way for the crossover film Legendary had been planning. — “Godzilla vs Kong,” directed by Adam Wingard (returning after his scuttled plans for the original Skull Island) and written by Eric Pearson and Max Borenstein, acts as the climax to the Monsterverse up to this point, p

itting the two titans against one another in a battle for supremacy, with several characters returning and Monarch playing a central role like always (with even crazier technology at their disposal). As touchstones for their personalities, Wingard cited John McClane from Die Hard as Kong’s tough but overwhelmed protagonist and WWE wrestler The Undertaker as Godzilla’s antihero inspiration - the dark, menacing figure who only appears when his rule is called into question. Much like Son of Kong, V

s reveals that Skull Island has been destroyed by the massive storm that once hid it from the world, with only Monarch’s intervention keeping Kong and Jia, the last Skull Island native, safe from the raging weather. And this is Kong’s transition into full fledged hero, complete with some really excellent facial and body expressions that make him the most human he’s ever been. Essentially, the now 335-foot Kong’s entire arc is being thrown into a conflict that he has nothing to do with, as Godzil

la and Apex war around the world, and being way in over his head. He also gets the film’s big hero moments, making choices of self-sacrifice and doing the right thing, like saving Godzilla’s butt from being stomped by Mechagodzilla and essentially being the only creature in existence that can cause Godzilla to change his mind. Having him being able to sign with Jia and Rebecca Hall’s Dr. Andrews gives him a far greater amount of direct communication than any other movie. Elements like the Hollow

Earth being home to Kong’s species and his ancient throne and the dorsal plate battle axe are the most outlandish ideas of any Kong movie, but they’re in line with the Monsterverse’s growing arc of cartoonishness. Alongside those elements, Godzilla vs Kong is also much wilder in its setpieces and hypercolored in aesthetics. Each Monsterverse movie moves further and further away from Edwards’ more grounded and somber 2014 film until Kong and Godzilla are battering each other in a neon Hong Kong

night with a glowing axe and high flying attacks. By the end of the movie, the two monsters have come to a truce, with Kong finding a new home in the Hollow Earth in a rare happy ending for the ape and Godzilla off to rule his domain. These movies highlight that Kong is the true protagonist of the Monsterverse with the biggest character arc. He goes from an orphan who loses his family and his home to a reluctant world savior to a friend of multiple human characters and the ruler of a new land. M

eanwhile, Godzilla largely stands as an inscrutable force of nature, enforcing his rule and restoring natural balance to the world, with humanity caught in the crossfire. Despite debuting during the height of the Covid pandemic and being simultaneously released in theaters and on HBO Max, Godzilla vs Kong had a solid performance of $470 million against its $200 million budget. And while this was the end of the first initial plan and licensing deal that Legendary had with Toho, its success led to

the deal’s extension. While that wasn’t necessary for further Kong stories, such as the Skull Island Netflix cartoon or the ape’s cliffhanger appearance at the end of Monarch, it was needed for his next encounter with Godzilla. — The newest addition to the Monsterverse and released just a little bit before this video’s release, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is directed by a returning Adam Wingard and written by Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett, and Jeremy Slater. And while we won’t get into every

detail and are limited by what footage is available, we will get into spoilers. Hey maybe a dedicated GxK video in a few months, anyway. Jump to this time to avoid spoilers! Picking up a little while after GvK, Godzilla X Kong sees our two monsters as masters of their separated kingdoms, with Godzilla keeping his fellow titans under control on the surface and Kong searching for his species within the Hollow Earth. Kong’s search accidentally releases the evil Scar King, his ape army, and the gian

t ice koopa Shimo, who previously caused the Ice Age and nearly took over the planet millenia ago. The planet’s only hope is for former enemies to become partners, and the journey is filled with giant lore dumps, ancient civilizations, zero gravity tag team fights, and the return of our unproblematic queen. To say this is the craziest, most unapologetically over the top Monsterverse film is an understatement. To go along with this increasingly heightened, Showa-inspired tone, GxK has several hom

ages to the past, with little stinker Suko in the vein of Son of Kong when he’s not used as an impromptu nunchuk, and Kong’s giant mechanical gauntlet gives him electric powers just like his King Kong vs Godzilla powerup. The fact that Monarch simply has this stuff lying around and its dropped in without any setup may feel like a total disregard for storytelling, and yeah it kinda is, but it’s of a piece with the exponential ridiculousness of the Monsterverse. Much like Dutch in the Aliens vs Pr

edator arcade game, everything is cooler with a robot arm. “What I wanted to do with this film more than anything was to put you in the perspective of the monsters,” said Wingard. “I wanted to do a film that was driven by nonverbal visual sequences.” And one of the film’s strongsuits is that both Kong and Godzilla are given large portions of time without human characters, relying on fantastic character work to tell you everything you need to know, with Kong especially given the chance to emote a

nd grow on his own. Godzilla largely plays support in the film, as it’s once again Kong that has the true character arc, in search of family and then fighting to his home against a monster that is essentially a dark version of him. Godzilla has some cool fights and overall is still presented with great gravitas, but I think his Berry Blast powerup doesn’t feel all that much different and isn’t as impressive as his Burning Godzilla overload in KOTM. And to go back to the representation of Skull I

sland natives, GxK adds a lot to the Iwi Tribe. First seen in Skull Island, they were silent pacific islanders that had an ancient culture largely told to us by John C Reilly’s Hank Marlow. Then, GvK wiped them out before the film began from the island-destroying storm, leaving Gia as our only representative, who thankfully was given a lot of character work. Here, it’s revealed that the Iwi are originally from the Hollow Earth, and are not only all mute, but telepathic guardians of Mothra. That’

s a lot of retconned backstory, but makes them more than the really garish stereotypes of old. If I have any real issues with the film, it’s that the pacing is somewhat off, leading to a less satisfying conclusion and that once we’re past Scar King’s introduction, he doesn’t feel like that much of a threat to our heroes. Still with Wingard expressing hopes for a third part to create a trilogy, I’m looking forward to what comes next. If GvK had humanity and mechagodzilla as the true threat, and G

xK had our villains come from deep underground, then part 3, G slash K obviously, should have our villains come from space. Gigan, anyone? Spoilers over. Godzilla x Kong cost $135 million and at the time of recording had a $194 million global opening weekend box office, essentially guaranteeing more. With Kong and a story set on Skull Island also being teased at the end of Monarch Season 1, it seems like Legendary and The Monsterverse as a whole is far from done with the story of the king. Meanw

hile, those complicated rights issues shows their face once again, as Disney recently announced a Disney+ series based on Joe DeVito’s King Kong of Skull Island novels with the endorsement of Merian C. Cooper’s estate. From tragic stories to kids cartoons to countless parodies to being the star of more adaptations than ever, there’s a quiet flexibility to King Kong that’s become more apparent than ever, subverting what was once an inevitable dark fate for the king. — And as I do with every retro

spective, here’s every King Kong movie ranked from worst to best. At 10, King Kong Lives. Misguided in basically every way. King Kong Lives isn’t the first or last unnecessary Kong sequel, but it does just about everything wrong, from its really silly ape interactions to its giant mechanical heart plot to the really dull romance at the center. But worst of all, the film commits the cardinal sin of film, it’s SO boring. Hairy dude shoulda stayed dead. At 9, Son of Kong Cheap cash-in sequels are n

othing new and Son of Kong is proof. If you look at this from the perspective of the creators wanting to make something more comedic, it works better, but everything in this movie is unsatisfying. This is vastly inferior to the original classic in every way, proving this sequel, which premiered only 9 months after the first, was made for nothing but making more money. At 8, King Kong Escapes This Toho kinda-sequel feels like someone watched King Kong and then had a really weird dream. I’m not en

tirely sure what I think of this movie, because it has all that old Showa charm with lots of James Bond espionage thrown in, but it also feels like the movie lacks any real ideas. Yes, it has Mechani-Kong. That’s about it. At 7, King Kong vs Godzilla A deeply deeply silly movie in both the Japanese and English versions. However, I appreciate its satirical side, and the kaiju fights, while sloppy due to them being some of the first ever, are fun. Like every Kong movie, there’s a running commentar

y of men trying to control and profit from Kong and ultimately failing, and this is much more focused on in the Japanese version. Also, King Kong not being able to beat Godzilla under normal circumstances is established here and is CORRECT. At 6, King Kong 2005 An extremely ambitious and massive movie that is wayyyyy too long and wayyyyy too melodramatic to always work. It’s beautiful and a top of the line production in every aspect, but Jackson’s commitment to just doing the original Kong but b

igger and with a more romantic sweep gets really tiring with a whole hour still to go. Andy Serkis is doing great work as Kong and him getting his head swallowed by a worm has haunted me for decades. At 5, Godzilla x Kong This film is just a massive, insane, super lore heavy blast of cartoonish fun. The smaller cast helps keep it focused and Kong is once again done justice in the Monsterverse, with Godzilla the supporting role but still being an insane force. It’s not quite as satisfying as Godz

illa vs Kong but this basically gives you everything you’d want in this wild premise. Plus the synthwave vibes are immaculate. And as far as the film’s ranking in my overall Godzilla rankings I set in my Shin Godzilla video, I’d place Godzilla X Kong at 15, above Godzilla vs Gigan but below Godzilla vs Kong, and yes that updated list includes Minus One but we’re not taling about that yet. At 4, Kong Skull Island Consistently entertaining throughout, with some absolutely beautiful shots and compo

sitions that feel rare in the age of CGI overreliance. It’s also satisfying in the larger scope of Kong movies to have our monkey beat civilization and stay on his island. Still, its use of every stock Vietnam archetype, cliche, and song feels stale a lot of the time, with these elements slammed together with the Kong story to feel a little more fun than usual. At 3, Godzilla vs Kong. Despite how bad the Godzilla side of the human characters is, everyone on the Kong side is so good. GvK is super

goofy and exaggerated and really working hard to set up reasons for the fight, but the characterization of Kong is GREAT. I love how in over his head he is and that his expressions really show that he knows it. It’s hard to make a kaiju the true protagonist of any movie but they pull it off here while keeping Godzilla as the Undertaker-inspired force of nature. And these fights really pop off hard. It delivers! At 2, King Kong 1976. I may like this one more than the general consensus, but I thi

nk this WHIPS. It’s the ecological Kong, putting the tragedy of Kong in contrast to an oil tycoon and our heroes being truly in step with the plight of our beast. It’s a big budget extravaganza that puts much more focus on the characters than you might expect. It’s not as inventive or exciting as the original, but it’s really strong and I like Kong’s sympathetic animal take in this. And at number 1, the original King Kong. An insane spectacle of effects and adventure. But what’s most surprising

is how fast it all moves for a movie that’s nearly a century old. It’s absolutely cutthroat in its action and violence, too, with both Kong and our heroes creating paths of devastation in both the wild and civilization. Kong himself is an unforgettable creation that’s launched the imaginations of countless creators in a film that’s been often imitated but never topped. For a character whose biggest claim to fame is his death, King Kong is more alive than ever, now a massive hero at the head of o

ne of the few successful cinematic universes. But Kong’s history has taught us that the film industry will only continue to change and demand new interpretations. Whatever comes next, Kong will be waiting to become King once again.