Well- I just heard that in six days the King Kong DVD sold $100 million worth of product......

http://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/entne ... 30700.html

Wow.

That's half as much as it did in theaters, domestically speaking!

It's a great DVD. I couldn't bring myself to sit through the movie again, but definitely buy it if you enjoyed it on the big-screen.

It'll be interesting to see how NARNIA does, which out-grossed KONG both in the U.S. and also internationally by a fairly wide margin. I just watched the movie and loved it!

I thought it was an awesome film, with an ending that really packs an emotional wallop (and I'm not talking about the final clinch between Brody and Watts).

What I find to be amazing is how low the pricing was on this. Tower was selling the two-disc set for less than Costco ($16.99 for a $34.99 MSLP product!), but Costco was selling both the two-disc package and for $28.99 you got the single-disc AND the Peter Jackson diary box. The only reason I didn't jump on this was that I had already bought the box last December before the movie came out, and paid $30 for it! It's still a good deal. . .

What was the general consensus on Howard's score? I thought it was quite effective, and the adaptation of Steiner's music for both the theater sequence and the end of the credits was a nice touch.

I'll probably pick up NARNIA on DVD, but might wait until I see a used two-disc set, or maybe a review copy at Amoeba. It was quite an achievement, and considering that Liam Neeson was the biggest name in the cast (and you don't even see him), an excellent example of how you don't need huge names on a film like this to make it both an artistic success as well as a financial one. After seeing NARNIA lip balm, however, I rather doubt that C. S. Lewis could have seen that coming.

That is a SWEET deal on the DVD and Jackson Diary box. Anyone ought to jump on that!

I'm not sure the film score community was as high on Newton Howard's music. I felt it was pretty forgettable myself, and quite feeble at the end of the movie (then again I end up paying way too much attention to that kind of thing The Steiner tribute was terrific but I believe that was something pre-built into the movie when Howard Shore was handling the music, and nothing to do with JNH per se.

The only thing I liked about JNH's music was the tender stuff- track 2 and the Central Park stuff- the stuff with Ann and Kong was the center of the movie for me and was what was strongest about the film for me- the rest was blase and didn't have any emotional impact. But then again, I feel that Jackson's heart was solely on Kong and Ann with the rest of the cast being expendable, one-dimensional goof-balls.

mkaroly wrote:The only thing I liked about JNH's music was the tender stuff- track 2 and the Central Park stuff- the stuff with Ann and Kong was the center of the movie for me and was what was strongest about the film for me- the rest was blase and didn't have any emotional impact. But then again, I feel that Jackson's heart was solely on Kong and Ann with the rest of the cast being expendable, one-dimensional goof-balls.

Great point on the latter Michael and that's exactly why there was no need for the movie to run 3 hours. I'm still trying to figure out what the point of the cabin boy was....that whole subplot should have been thrown out entirely.

Yeah, what about the cabin boy? Did he die on the island? Join the tribe? Get stomped by Kong? They kill off his mentor then he just disappears (as I recall). The ending line would have been more effective if his character or Brody's would have delivered it. Black saying it gave it no weight. At least Armstrong in the original film had more of an emotional tie-in with the line.

As for the use of Steiner's music, I think that was more Jackson's say. Since the maestro is one of the people getting a dedication at the end, I think Jackson probably insisted on some of the 1933 score being used, and I think it was very effective, IMHO.

Jedbu wrote: Yeah, what about the cabin boy? Did he die on the island? Join the tribe? Get stomped by Kong? They kill off his mentor then he just disappears (as I recall). The ending line would have been more effective if his character or Brody's would have delivered it. Black saying it gave it no weight. At least Armstrong in the original film had more of an emotional tie-in with the line.

As for the use of Steiner's music, I think that was more Jackson's say. Since the maestro is one of the people getting a dedication at the end, I think Jackson probably insisted on some of the 1933 score being used, and I think it was very effective, IMHO.

Agreed across the board. Black's character was one of my major issues with the film, too.