Debuting at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, the first trailer for Vietnam era set King Kong reboot Kong: Skull Island below many people’s jaws off with just a teasing glimpse of the movie’s towering new version of everybody’s favourite gigantic money. Now, thanks to EW, we have our first look at the new King Kong, and it’s readily apparent that director Jordan Vogt-Roberts is drawing on the 1933 classic for the titular characters look, a complete 180 from Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake, the last time we saw King Kong on the big screen.
Speaking to the publication, Vogt-Roberts explained his re-imagining of the titular monster, saying:
Kong: Skull Island comes our way March 10th 2017.
Speaking to the publication, Vogt-Roberts explained his re-imagining of the titular monster, saying:
“I had a mandate that I wanted a kid to be able to doodle him on the back of a piece of homework and for his shapes to be simple and hopefully iconic enough that, like, a third grader could draw that shape and you would know what it is. A big part of our Kong was I wanted to make something that gave the impression that he was a lonely God, he was a morose figure, lumbering around this island.
We sort of went back to the 1933 version in the sense that he’s a bipedal creature that walks in an upright position, as opposed to the anthropomorphic, anatomically correct silverback gorilla that walks on all fours. Our Kong was intended to say, like, this isn’t just a big gorilla or a big monkey. This is something that is its own species. It has its own set of rules, so we can do what we want and we really wanted to pay homage to what came before…and yet do something completely different.”
He also want on to explain that he won’t be taking the approach Gareth Edwards’s took with Godzilla, who will eventually share the screen with Kong in a big budget team-up movie, and will show off the monster as soon as possible:
“We’re also fundamentally not playing the same game that Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla did and most monster movies do, which I’m sort of sick of the notion that a monster movie needs to wait an hour or 40 minutes until the creature shows up. Kong traditionally does not show up in these movies until very, very late, and the monster traditionally does not show up until very, very late in a monster movie, so a lot of these movies tend to have this structure that’s a bit of a slow burn. Something about this movie made me want to reject that and play a very, very different game.”
