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When you’re young, your favorite movies can leave quite an impression on you. For a nine-year-old boy in New Zealand, it set him on the path towards becoming a filmmaker. Indeed, Peter Jackson’s first viewing of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s 1933 epic “King Kong” on a tiny television screen inspired him to make movies. In a 2005 interview with NBC News, Jackson said the film had a “profound effect” on him and described its titular ape as “a very special little chap” who captured his heart. When he was 12, he even made a rubber Kong and cardboard model of the Empire State Building and tried to animate it using his parents’ Super-8 camera.
What was it about “King Kong” that Peter Jackson loved so much? In an interview with CHUD, he once described the film as “a wonderful piece of escapist entertainment. It has everything that’s really cool about movies like a lost, remote island, a giant ape, dinosaurs, and it also has this wonderful heart and soul.” Jackson was particularly drawn to the “terrible inevitability” of Kong’s tragic fate on the Empire State Building that made him cry. “You feel almost feel ashamed to be a human being when you see what happens to him. I mean, he is ultimately a pure-heart,” he reflected while speaking to NBC News.
How fitting then, that this little boy would grow up to make movies with all sorts of monstrous creatures, from zombies and orcs to ghosts and goblins. Much like the stop-motion animation of Kong in the 1930s, Jackson would also go on to create technological marvels with Weta Workshop, most notably the groundbreaking motion-capture design of Gollum, which would forever change the landscape of cinema.
Jackson’s King Kong was nearly a decade in the making
The desire to put his own stamp on the “King Kong” story had stayed with Jackson ever since he first picked up his Super-8 camera. As he stated in a 2005 interview with CHUD, “I’ve been wanting to make this movie for a long, long time, and I’ve had ideas and images in my head for years and years and years. I was just really wanting to create a film that I would enjoy.” But the road to realizing his own version was rocky.
According to the book “King Kong: The History of a Movie Icon — From Fay Wray to Peter Jackson,” Jackson’s work on the quirky ghost horror-comedy “The Frighteners” in 1996 inspired Universal Studios to offer him the chance to remake “King Kong.” The studio was impressed by the imaginative special effects that blended prosthetic makeup and computer-generated imagery to create glowing blue phantoms with peeling skin and wobbly jaws. At the same time, Jackson was waiting for Miramax to purchase the film rights for “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings,” which would change his life forever.
But first, Peter Jackson goes to Middle-earth
Since waiting for the approval to adapt Tolkien was taking a long time, Jackson decided to dive into working on “King Kong.” The book “Peter Jackson: A Film-maker’s Journey” reveals that he began writing the script, designing sets, and scouting New Zealand locations even before making his first trip to Middle-earth. In 1997, however, Universal Studios dropped the project after it became worried about creature feature fatigue with the release of Roland Emmerich’s “Godzilla” and Ron Underwood’s “Mighty Joe Young” in 1998. So, Jackson resumed developing on his “Lord of the Rings” film trilogy, and we all know how that turned out.
The mammoth success of “The Lord of the Rings” gave Jackson the artistic freedom and the gumption to return to “King Kong,” almost immediately after. Per Jackson:
“People didn’t really know it at the time, because you don’t talk about it, but when we flew over to Los Angeles for the Oscars for ‘Return of the King,’ we were in a ‘Kong’ production meeting the following day. We had a Universal script meeting the day after the Oscars and then after that I got on a plane and flew to New York and met with Fay Wray and we got a tour of the top of the Empire State Building and took photos and videotape on the top of the Empire State Building for building a set. So we were already in the middle of doing ‘Kong’ then. It’s been sort of a continuous journey.”
Having worked on some of the greatest fantasy films of all time back-to-back, Jackson jumped at the chance to finally be able to remake the one movie he’d always wanted to reimagine.
A love letter to Kong
Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” remake beautifully communicates that sense of childhood wonder and empathy for the giant ape that Jackson felt as a young boy. He portrays Kong not as a monster but a lonely, misunderstood, innocent creature. He is powerful yet loving toward Ann Darrow, whose big baby blues take him in with such reverence. The beating heart of Jackson’s “King Kong” is Andy Serkis’ remarkable motion capture performance as Kong, aided by the incredibly detailed CGI technology that makes him feel alive with eyes that have a wellspring of emotion.
Kong’s relationship with Ann is the film’s core; he views her as a playful companion during her clowning, then a friend he has a deep affection for. There are tender scenes where they silently watch a serene, pastel-colored sunset and glide across the ice in Central Park. This portrayal sharply differs from the 1970s “King Kong” remake, where Kong leers at Anne and tries to rip off her clothes. Jackson’s “King Kong” also retains that glamorous, Old Hollywood aesthetic in its 1930s setting, which adds to the nostalgic charm.
“What would the nine-year-old Peter Jackson think of this remake?” NBC journalist Stone Phillips once asked Jackson. He replied, “Oh, I think he’d like it because I think there’s still a little bit of that nine-year-old in me and I’m pretty happy.” Jackson succeeded in making his very own love letter to the movie he adored so much, one that is ambitious, sentimental, and filled with breathless adventure. His version of “King Kong” draws out the fragility and warmth of Kong’s relationship with Anne, uses his own superior special effects to bring Kong to life, and lengthens the story to include a host of creepy-crawly and prehistoric giants in the film’s sweeping action scenes.
