KING KONG 2005 Official Thread

[AndyDursin]

Just thought I'd start one thread for the upcoming blockbuster.

Very interesting article from the NY Times today about the swelling budget and length. No mention of the score but still a good read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/27/movie ... nted=print

A Big Gorilla Weighs In
By SHARON WAXMAN

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 26 - In hiring Peter Jackson, the Oscar-winning director of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, to remake the monster classic "King Kong," Universal Pictures took a daring leap, paying him $20 million to direct, produce and be the co-writer of the film.

With seven weeks to go before the movie's release, the risks are becoming clearer. After seeing a version of the film in late September at Mr. Jackson's studio in New Zealand, Universal executives agreed to release "King Kong" at a length of three hours.

The film is substantially longer than Universal had anticipated and presents dual obstacles: the extra length has helped increase the budget by a third, to $207 million, while requiring the studio, owned by General Electric, to reach for the kind of long-term audience interest that made hits out of three-hour movies like "Titanic" and the films in Mr. Jackson's "Rings" trilogy.

Hollywood blockbusters have increasingly relied on big releases that bring in as much as half of their ticket sales on the first weekend. But long films receive far fewer showings per day, and the most successful ones, like "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001) by Mr. Jackson, which took in $315 million at the domestic box office for New Line Cinema, have remained in theaters for well over half a year.

The film industry and Universal could use a big seller.

Hollywood has been struggling this year at the box office, with overall revenue down more than half a billion dollars, about 8 percent, from last year's total, according to Box Office Mojo, an online tracking service. Industry experts attribute the decline to a migration of audiences to other forms of electronic entertainment, whether television, DVD's, video games or the Internet. Universal has had a mediocre year at the box office. The studio had a hit in the summer with the comedy "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," but has endured disappointments, like the drama "Cinderella Man," and has had lackluster results with films like "The Perfect Man," "Kicking and Screaming" and "Doom," which opened last week to a tepid $15 million.

Asked about the length of "King Kong," Universal executives said they saw it as an advantage in an era when jaded moviegoers are hungering for something extraordinary.

"This is a three-hour feast of an event," said Marc Shmuger, vice chairman of Universal Pictures, who described the film as a tragic love story between the ape and Naomi Watts, who plays Ann Darrow, an actress. "I've never come close to seeing an artist working at this level."

Set for release on Dec. 14, "King Kong" retells the classic beauty-and-the-beast tale first filmed in 1933, with its lasting image of Kong atop the Empire State Building, and remade in 1976. Along with Ms. Watts, it stars Jack Black, Adrien Brody and a 25-foot, computer-animated gorilla.

This time around, the picture depends upon another oversize talent in the person of Mr. Jackson, who was granted an unusual degree of control at a time when studios are trimming costs and tightening their grips on most productions. Not only did Mr. Jackson produce and direct, and also write with his longtime partner, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens, but his companies Weta Digital and Weta Workshop also created the physical and computer special effects in the film at Mr. Jackson's studio in New Zealand.

Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount took a risk in granting the director James Cameron a similar degree of control over his famously overbudget 1997 film "Titanic," and eventually came up winners. In that case, Mr. Cameron's three-hour epic, a love story set in the midst of the ship's sinking, went on to break box-office records and win 11 Oscars. With "King Kong," Universal executives say they are convinced that they have an epic of comparable worth, even though they were surprised by the length.

"I anticipated it would be long, but not this long," the Universal chairwoman, Stacey Snider, said. As recently as late September, she expected about two hours and 40 minutes, she said. But on Wednesday she expressed delight with the picture she's got: "This is a masterpiece. I can't wait to unveil it."

The increased length, Ms. Snider said, means that the movie will cost $32 million more than planned, adding to expenses that had already gone up $25 million from an original $150 million production budget.

Who will pay for these budget overruns has been the subject of intense negotiations over the last two weeks, with representatives of the studio and the director haggling over who was responsible, according to those involved in the negotiations.

Ms. Snider said that as of Wednesday, all had been resolved, with the studio more or less splitting the $32 million expense with Mr. Jackson.

In an e-mail message, Mr. Jackson appeared to disagree, saying instead that he would be paying for those expenditures, which were mainly associated with extra digital-effects shots. Referring to his partner, Ms. Walsh, Mr. Jackson wrote: "Since Fran and I believed in the three-hour cut and wanted to take responsibility for the extra length, we offered to pay for these extra shots ourselves. That's what we're doing." He did not say how much that would be, but said the extra effects shot would cost "considerably below $32 million."

A spokesman for Universal responded, "We are working together to cover overages."

In granting Mr. Jackson immense latitude, Universal relied not just on his skills, but also a huge fan base, much of which has followed the production through the director's frequent communications on a Web site, www.kongisking.net.

But few elements of the film have been seen by the larger public, and even Universal executives saw a finished version of King Kong's face - with its expressive eyes, broadly fierce nose and mane of computer-generated hair - only in recent days.

Universal lost an opportunity to capitalize on a "Kong" revenue stream when an anticipated deal to release the film on Imax screens in December, at the same time the movie would appear in regular theaters, failed to materialize, and Imax chose to show Warner Brothers' new "Harry Potter" film, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."

"We think 'King Kong' will be a big movie," Richard L. Gelfond, co-chairman of Imax, said, "but unfortunately we could not agree on deal terms, including the box-office split."

Ms. Snider said Imax could not guarantee space in its theaters at the time of Kong's release, and acknowledged that both the studio and Mr. Jackson were disappointed.

A spokeswoman for NBC Universal said Bob Wright, the chairman, has been told of the rising cost and length of "King Kong." "Bob is more than aware of what is going on with this production and other major productions, and he has enormous confidence in the leadership team at Universal Studios," said the spokeswoman, Anna Perez.

Ms. Snider said she did not think the three-hour length would be an obstacle for moviegoers. Three-hour epics, she said, are Mr. Jackson's "brand."

Exhibitors have long complained that very long films make it harder to draw audiences, though in this difficult year at the box office, they have complained louder about not having enough good films to show. Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, which tracks the box office for theater owners, agreed that long movies posed problems. "But if it's a really fine film, it won't be a detriment to its success," he said.

[romanD]

I seriously doubt that the story justifies 3 hours length. Still nothing gets me really excited for this movie. Even the new international trailer (or whatever which strangely only seems to be playing in Germany in front of FLIGHTPLAN, havent found it in the internet) doesn't get me... the audience again was laughing about the title and what happened onscreen and many around me were chatting about what crap that is going to be.

I think it will be a good movie, but I just can't imagine that it will be a big hit. Especially after all the failures this year it is really hard to say whether this will be a hit or a bomb.

[AndyDursin]

As I wrote over on the FSM board (look at me -- I'm a traitor even to my own site! lol), there are going to be issues with the running time with KING KONG...at least in terms of its box-office intake.

With LORD OF THE RINGS you had a somewhat older-skewing crowd familiar with the material from the books, and who had no issue with the movie's 3 hour running time(s).

KING KONG, though, is very different than LOTR or a film like TITANIC: it's a *monster movie*. As in, old-fashioned monsters, dinosaurs, what have you.

For that reason, kids are going to be a much bigger part of the film's built-in audience than they were in LOTR, and subsequently, a 3-hour running time is going to hurt this movie a lot more than it did on LOTR (you can just see the film losing out on admissions, particularly those holiday matinees which families flock to over the Christmas break).

I know the arguments are out there -- "well, look at what LOTR did, look how much TITANIC took in" -- but let's face it: it's KING KONG! It's not a heavy subject matter, or really one with a great deal of depth. Some audiences are going to bypass it completely just because it's a MONSTER movie. What would they say if they carted out a 3-hour GORGO or 4-hour GODZILLA?

I agree with you Roman as well: I'm fascinated to see WHY the movie runs 3 hours. The story as is doesn't justify that running time, IMO, but perhaps Jackson has tailored the movie with enough Jack Black improvisations to warrant that length??

[romanD]

the new and final (?) trailer is out at apple...

well, the only original thing about it is that it starts with a fairly romantic scene between kong and naomi... but then I can only warn you to watch it, as this is one of the trailers which show the you the complete movie. Come on! Why do you have to spoil everything? Probably they thought everybody knows the story anyway, but why can't they give us just a trailer with images and music and not tell the story bit by bit...

and now as the movie runs 3 hours how long do we have to wait until we get to kong? 90 minutes? great move! you've seen him so detailed and in every frame of the trailer that hardly any suspense gets created in the movie. Why build up to a big reveal, when everybody knows what he looks like? Sure he is just an ape and we know apes, but still...

Emmerich did a much better trailer for Godzilla... a whole trailer without showing Big G!

Anyhow.. it looks nice, but still doesn't get me excited...

beware watching it!

[Eric W.]

I'm just apathetic about the whole King Kong thing in general. Never really cared that much.

I can guarantee you right now that three hours is too long for this thing.

The only reason the movie has as much interest as it does is because it's "Peter Jackson's next project after LOTR.."

If he weren't on this, it would be very tepid out there right now. PJ's involvement is the only reason I've even given this thing any consideration at all.

[romanD]

cool feature about JNH's music...

http://img-nex.kongisking.net/kong/movi ... Go_qt4.mov

[AndyDursin]

Great segment Roman. Hard to get a grasp of the music there though...very much sounding like one would anticipate with the material, a lot of percussion, chorus and the like. My best guess is that they dumped Shore not because of that "style" of music so much as his quieter/love theme material, which is not his forte. But who knows what happened there!

[AndyDursin]

Probably they thought everybody knows the story anyway, but why can't they give us just a trailer with images and music and not tell the story bit by bit...

and now as the movie runs 3 hours how long do we have to wait until we get to kong? 90 minutes? great move! you've seen him so detailed and in every frame of the trailer that hardly any suspense gets created in the movie. Why build up to a big reveal, when everybody knows what he looks like? Sure he is just an ape and we know apes, but still...

Emmerich did a much better trailer for Godzilla... a whole trailer without showing Big G!

I meant to reply to this earlier Roman. I couldn't agree with you more -- I thought the whole issue of Kong's appearance would have been a mystery, at least up until the time of the movie's release. They opted to go the other route and let the whole cat out of the bag, so to speak, and I can't see how that's going to help. I'm surprised they decided to do it, because most people have really been down on his look ("hey, it's a souped up ape from the MIGHTY JOE YOUNG remake")...

CHARLIE & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY was a remake "done right," but I really am having a hard time getting excited about KING KONG. And by the way, does anyone know that Jack Black is one of the stars? Or Adrien Brody? They don't even appear in the trailers other than a few seconds! Even the '76 version at least went to some trouble to drum up the humans appearing in the film alongside their big ape...this campaign is all about the effects, which is no surprise.

[Eric Paddon]

So far, the only thing about this film that has excited me is that it got Universal to release Widescreen DVDs of the two Toho Kong films they own the US versions of!

[JugularPlumbob]

This is just an observation, no value judgments intended:

In the Golden Age version of King Kong, the viewer's suspension of disbelief was required to smooth out the jerky motion of Kong.

Now, with CGI, the images and motion are in a kind of hyperrealism, as if in a kind of dream state. Personally, while I notice peripherally that the images are too "perfect" to be real, I find it easier to get lost in the fantasy, willingly slack-jawed. Maybe a "real" island would look too clunky, or be too hard to work with! (Maybe! And did I really avoid value judging?!)

I admit to looking forward to hearing Howard Shore's treatment -- go ahead and dupe me, man, I'll probably enjoy it!

[AndyDursin]

This is just an observation, no value judgments intended:

In the Golden Age version of King Kong, the viewer's suspension of disbelief was required to smooth out the jerky motion of Kong.

Now, with CGI, the images and motion are in a kind of hyperrealism, as if in a kind of dream state. Personally, while I notice peripherally that the images are too "perfect" to be real, I find it easier to get lost in the fantasy, willingly slack-jawed. Maybe a "real" island would look too clunky, or be too hard to work with! (Maybe! And did I really avoid value judging?!)

I admit to looking forward to hearing Howard Shore's treatment -- go ahead and dupe me, man, I'll probably enjoy it!

Larry, welcome aboard I'm not sure we'll ever hear Howard Shore's score, but something tells me a "private release" may be in order at some point...

[JugularPlumbob]

sorry -- JNH! I'm looking forward to hearing THIS Howard's score!
(don't know what happened to Howard Shore...)[/b]

[mkaroly]

I agree with the assertions in these posts that studios show too much in trailers nowadays. Maybe this is a bad example, but I saw a trailer for WALK THE LINE the other day and they show what I am guessing is one of the final shots in the movie in their trailer montage- what purpose does that serve???

As far as KONG goes, I share some of the fears expressed in these posts. 3 hours? How does Jackson intend to keep the audience's attention span if Adrien Brody and Jack Black are your leads in a 3 hour story about an ape? I was thinking that maybe the exploration of the island post-Kong appearance (dinosaurs, spiders, etc) will take up the bulk of the middle of the film...but still! C'mon!

Maybe studios figure that the movie-going audience is so desensitized to CGI characters that it doesn't matter whether or not you show the "star" now or later- I can't speak for everyone else, but I was definitely hoping that they wouldn't show KONG at all in the trailer and leave it at his yell or something. Oh well- I'll still pay the money to see it.

Are we too desensitized to CGI?

[romanD]

cool feature:

http://img-nex.kongisking.net/kong/movi ... 6_high.mov

music sounds like the usual though...

[AndyDursin]

Saw the "long", last trailer with POTTER -- still spectacularly unimpressed and hopeful the movie will deliver regardless. Amazing that Adrien Brody doesn't get one line of dialogue in any one trailer for the film, and he's one of the lead characters!!