BY JUSTIN CAMILLERI
Rooooooooar…..It’s a giant, it’s an alien… No, its king Kong. Hailing from the wild jungles of Skull Island the great ape has come back for more, much more scaring our socks off this Christmas.
Director Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) has definitely saved the best for last in what promises to be 2005’s ultimate cliff-hanger leaving audiences clinging to their seats challenging other Christmas favourites:The chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire.
On its release in 1933 the original King Kong went on to become one of the most enduring monster films of all time. Its subject matter of an ape falling for a beautiful woman has become a classic tale of going after the unknown with devastating results.
Since the 1933 version their have been five films trying to surpass the star power of the original: Son of Kong (1933) King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) King Kong Escapes (1967) King Kong (1976) King Kong Lives (1986). This latest incarnation is a remake of the Fay Wray original. A new generation of film goers will have the opportunity to see Kong going back to his roots with his scaling the Empire State building unlike the DeLaurentis 70s version where the gigantic ape set foot on the World Trade Center.
At the UK Premiere in Leicester Square Jackson reminisced on how the 1933 original inspired his interest in film-making at the tender age of nine. He said: “I've always harboured this desire to remake it. I finally did it.”
King Kong hosts an array of International stars from the likes of Adrien Brody (Oscar winner for The Pianist) to Naomi Watts (The Ring series) Andy Serkis (Gollum from The Lord of the Rings) Jack Black (School of Rock) and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot).
The modern epic, costing $207m (£117m), is over 3 hours long, emulating the duration of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Filmed in Miramar, New Zealand, King Kong, like its predecessor, is expected to boost yet again the country’s lavish landscape as a haven for holiday makers from across the globe.
Set in the 1930s the epic follows an Orson Welles style filmmaker Carl Denham (Jack Black) and a group of explorers who travel to an uncharted island to film a movie. Once there, they discover a gigantic gorilla named Kong who has been hidden for millions of years. Kong is lured to capture by the looks of a beautiful woman and is put on display and billed the eighth wonder of the world. What follows is destruction as the ape escapes from its captors, causing havoc all over New York City.
Prior to the New York World premiere and the UK premiere in Leicester Square the ape marketing campaign kicked off last June when the teaser trailer was shown in Cinemas before War of the World’s opening.
It seems that Jackson was inspired by Spielberg’s marketing approach for WOTW, safeguarding all the film’s secrets and using the teaser trailer to his advantage by strategically releasing only very few visual details. This resulted with fans craving for more and the film becoming a favourite even with film buffs who were not necessarily fans of the monster movie genre.
This approach was also used for Peter Jackson’s Production Diaries, which were available on the web and which allowed a behind the scenes glimpse as to the way King Kong was being made.
These web snippets of four minutes each included a tour of the set, a roving camera introducing the main actors behind the scene and the special effects team creating the ape movements in a motion capture studio.
These diaries proved a very effective promotional tool, started shortly after the DVD release of the third Lord of the Rings installment keeping fans thirsty for more, waiting patiently every week to catch a glimpse of the Giant ape. These web diaries were then made into a DVD prior to the films release.
At the world Premiere in New York’s Times Square a huge 20 ft ape was erected which became quite the talk of the day as huge traffic jams were caused as a result of onlookers wanting to take pictures of the Gorilla in a relaxed pose.
In Leicester Square, London last Thursday where I had the once in a lifetime opportunity to attend the Premiere at the Odeon Cinema, a large billboard was set up. The lit-up credits read: “King Kong: Eight wonder of the world” simply evoking that it is not just a movie but a historical event. The atmosphere in the square was at its peak as a very enthusiastic public were trying their best to catch a glimpse of the stars entering the Cinema despite the cold weather.
I managed to take home with me one of the promotional King size posters that was attached to the barricades. I only later realized in the Piccadilly Tube station that I wasn’t the only one who wanted to take a piece of Kong memorabilia home for Christmas, with dozens of fellow travellers clutching exactly the same poster!!
What’s true is that despite all the frenzy and hype Kong has returned with a large roar and is set to win over even the most critical film goer at the local box office this season. Kong’s producers are set to reduce Spielberg’s aliens from WOTW to Bambi and Lucas’s Darth Vader to Don Juan, rattling Santa’s sleigh in the process…
|
