King Kong is the name of a fictional giant ape from the fictional Skull Island, who has appeared in several works since 1933. These include the groundbreaking 1933 film, the film remakes of 1976 and 2005, and numerous sequels. His role in the different narratives varies from source to source, ranging from mindless monster to tragic antihero. The rights to the character are currently held by Universal Studios, with limited rights held by the estate of Merian C. Cooper (see below).
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In the original film, the character's name is Kong -- a name given to him by the inhabitants of "Skull Island" in the Indian Ocean, where Kong lived along with other over-sized animals such as a plesiosaur, pterosaurs, and dinosaurs ("Kong" is actually the Danish word for "King", the cognate of the English word; it is unknown whether this was known to the filmmakers or influenced them). "King" is an appellation added by an American film crew led by Carl Denham, who captures Kong and takes him to New York City to be exhibited as the "Eighth Wonder of the World". Kong escapes and climbs the Empire State Building (the World Trade Center in the 1976 remake) where he is shot and killed by aircraft. Nevertheless, as Denham comments, "it was beauty killed the beast", for he climbed the building in the first place only in an attempt to protect Ann Darrow, an actress originally offered up to Kong as a sacrifice. (In the 1976 remake the equivalent character is named Dwan.)
A mockumentary about Skull Island on the DVD for the 2005 remake (but originally seen on the Sci-Fi Channel at the time of its theatrical release) gives Kong's scientific name as Megaprimatus kong, and states that his species may have evolved from Gigantopithecus.
The King Kong character was conceived and created by US filmmaker Merian C. Cooper.
The literary tradition of a remote and isolated jungle populated by natives and prehistoric animals was rooted in the Lost World genre, specifically Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World, which was itself made into a silent film of that title in 1925 that Doyle lived long enough to see. The special effects of that film were created by Willis O'Brien, who went on to do those for the 1933 King Kong. Another important book in that literary genre is Edgar Rice Burroughs' 1918 novel The Land That Time Forgot.
A novelization of the original King Kong film was published in December 1932 as part of the film's advance marketing. The novel was credited to Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper, although it was in fact written by Delos W. Lovelace. Apparently, however, Cooper was the key creative influence, saying that he got the initial idea after he had a dream that a giant gorilla was terrorizing New York City. In an interview, comic book author Joe DeVito explains:
This conclusion about Wallace's contribution agrees with The Making of King Kong, by Orville Goldner and George E. Turner (1975). Wallace died of pneumonia complicated by diabetes on February 10, 1932, and Cooper later said, "Actually, Edgar Wallace didn't write any of Kong, not one bloody word... I'd promised him credit and so I gave it to him" (p. 59).
In the October 28, 1933 issue of Cinema Weekly, the short story "King Kong" by Edgar Wallace and Draycott Montagu Dell (1888-1940) was published. The short story appears in Peter Haining's Movie Monsters (1988) published by Severn House in the UK. Dell was a journalist and wrote books for children, such as the 1934 story and puzzle book Stand and Deliver. He was a co-worker and close friend of Edgar Wallace.
Several differences exist in the novel from the completed film, as it reflects an earlier draft of the script that became the final shooting script. The novelization includes scenes from the screenplay that were cut from the completed movie, or were never shot altogether. These include the spider pit sequence, as well as a Styracosaurus attack, and Kong battling three Triceratops. It also does not feature the character of Charlie, the ship's Chinese cook, but instead a different one named Lumpy, subsequently used in both the 1991 comic book version and the 2005 big-screen remake.
The original publisher was Grosset & Dunlap. Paperback editions by Bantam (U.S.) and Corgi (UK) came out in the 1960s, and it has since been republished by Penguin and Random House.
In 1933, Mystery Magazine published a King Kong serial under the byline of Walter F. Ripperger. This is unrelated to the 1932 novel.
Over the decades, there have been numerous comic book adaptations of the 1933 King Kong by various comic-book publishers, and one of the 2005 remake by Dark Horse Comics.
Kong: King of Skull Island, an illustrated novel labeled as an authorized sequel to King Kong (1933), was published in 2004 by DH Press, a subsidiary of Dark Horse Comics. A large-paperback edition was released in 2005. Authorized by the family and estate of Merian C. Cooper, the book was created & illustrated by Joe DeVito, written by Brad Strickland with John Michlig, and includes an introduction by Ray Harryhausen. The novel's story ignores the existence of Son of Kong (1933) and continues the story of Skull Island with Carl Denham and Jack Driscoll in the late 1950s, through the novel's central character, Vincent Denham. (Ann Darrow does not appear, but is mentioned several times.) The novel also becomes a prequel that reveals the story of the early history of Kong, of Skull Island, and of the natives of the island. The book's official website claims a motion picture version is in development.[2]
The novelization of the 2005 movie was written by Christopher Golden, based on the screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, & Peter Jackson, which was, of course, in turn based on the original story by Merian C. Cooper & Edgar Wallace. (The Island of the Skull, a "prequel" novel to the 2005 movie, was released at nearly the same time.)
In November 2005, to coincide with the release of the 2005 movie, Weta Workshop released a collection of concept art from the film entitled The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island. While similar collections of production art have been released in the past to compliment other movies, The World of Kong is unusual - if not unique - in that it is written and designed to resemble and read like an actual nature guide and historical record, not a movie book.
Also in 2005, ibooks published Kong Reborn by Russell Blackford. Ignoring all films except the 1933 original, it is set in the present day. Carl Denham's grandson finds some genetic material from the original Kong and attempts to clone him. Late in 2005, the BBC and Hollywood trade papers reported that a 3-D stereoscopic version of the 2005 film was being created from the animation files, and live actors digitally enhanced for 3D display. This may be just an elaborate 3D short for Universal Studios Theme Park, or a digital 3D version for general release in the future.
In his first appearance in King Kong (1933), Kong was a gigantic prehistoric ape, or as RKO's publicity materials described him, "A prehistoric type of ape"[3]. While gorilla-like in appearance, he had a humanoid look and walked upright in an anthromorphized manner. Indeed, Carl Denham describes him as being "neither beast nor man". Like most simians, Kong possess semi-human intelligence and great physical strength. Kong's size changes drastically throughout the course of the film. While creator Merian C. Cooper envisioned Kong as being "40 to 50 feet tall"[4], animator Willis O'Brien and his crew built the models and sets scaling Kong to be only 18 feet tall on Skull Island, and rescaled to be 24 feet tall in New York [5]. However this didn't stop Cooper from playing around with Kong's size as he directed the special effect sequences, By manipulating the sizes of the miniatures and using camera angles he made Kong appear a lot larger than O'Brien wanted, making him appear as large as 60 feet in some scenes[6]. Concurrently, the full scale Kong bust built for the film was built in scale with a 40 foot ape,[7] while RKO's promotional materials listed Kong's official height as 50 feet [3].
In the 1960's, Toho licensed the character from RKO for a couple of film's. King Kong vs Godzilla and King Kong Escapes. For more details on the Toho Kong See Below
In 1975, Producer Dino De Laurentiis paid RKO for the remake rights to King Kong. This resulted in King Kong (1976). Like the original, this Kong was an upright walking anthromorphized ape. Even appearing more human like than the original. Also like the original, this Kong had vast intelligence and strength. In the 1976 film, Kong was scaled to be 42 feet tall on Skull island and rescaled to be 55 feet tall in New York[8]. 10 years later, DDL received permission from Universal to do a sequel. This resulted in King Kong Lives. Kong more or less had the same appearance and abilties, only he tended to walk on his knuckles more often and was enlarged, being scaled to be 60 feet [9].
Universal Studios had planned to do a King Kong remake all the way back to 1976. They finally followed through almost 30 years later, which resulted in King Kong (2005) directed by Peter Jackson. Jackson opted to make Kong a gigantic silverback gorilla without any anthromorphized features. Kong looked and behaved more like a real gorilla. He had a large herbivores belly, walked on his knuckles without any upright poster, and even beat his chest with his palms as opposed to clenched fists. In order to ground his Kong in realism, Jackson and the Weta Digital crew even gave a name to his species, Megaprimatus Kong. A fictitious species that was said to have evolved from the Gigantopithecus. Kong being the last of his kind. Kong was portrayed in the film as being old with graying fur, and battle-worn with scars, wounds, and a broken/crooked jaw. Like his predecessors, he possesses great intelligence and physical strength. He also appears far more nimble and agile. This Kong was scaled to be only 25 feet tall.[10]
Even though he is one of the most famous movie icons in history, King Kong's rights have always been in question featuring in numerous allegations and court battles throughout the years. The rights to the character have always been split up with no single exclusive rights holder.
When Merian C. Cooper created King Kong, he'd always assumed that he owned his own creation, which he conceived in 1929, outright. Cooper always stated that he only licensed the character to RKO for the one film and sequel but that he otherwise had outright owned the character. In 1935, Cooper began to feel something was amiss when he was trying to get a Tarzan vs King Kong project off the ground. Because of the rights situation that ensued, he began to realize he might not have full control over a figment of his own imagination[11]
Years later in 1962, Cooper had found out that RKO was licensing the character through John Beck to Toho studios in Japan for a film project called King Kong vs Godzilla. Cooper had assumed his rights were unassailable and was bitterly opposed to the project. In 1963 he filed a lawsuit to enjoin distribution of the movie against John Beck as well as Toho and Universal (the films U.S copyright holder).[12] Furthermore RKO was making a fortune off of licensed products featuring the King Kong character such as model kits produced by Aurora Plastics Corporation. Cooper's executive assistant, Charles B FitzSimons, stated that these companies should be negotiating through him and Cooper for such licensed products and not RKO. In a letter Cooper wrote to Robert Bendick he stated:
Cooper and his legal team offered up various documents to bolster the case that Cooper had owned King Kong and only licensed the character to RKO for two films, rather than selling him outright. Many people vouched for Cooper's claims including David O. Selznick (who had written a letter to Mr. A Loewenthal of the Famous Artists Syndicate in Chicago in 1932 stating (in regards to Kong) The rights of this are owned by Mr. Merian C. Cooper.[13] But unfortunately Cooper had lost key documents through the years (he discovered these papers missing after he returned from his WW2 military service) such as a key informal yet binding letter from Mr. Ayelsworth (then president of the RKO Studio Corp) and a formal binding letter from Mr. B. B. Kahane (the current president of RKO studio Corp) confirming that Cooper had only licensed the rights to the character for the two RKO pictures and nothing more.[14]
Unfortunately without these letters it seemed Cooper's rights were relegated to the Lovelace novelization that he had copyrighted (He was able to make a deal for a Bantam Books paperback reprint and a Gold Key comic adaptation of the novel, but that was all he could do). Cooper's lawyer had received a letter from John Beck's lawyer, Gordon E Youngman, that stated:
In a letter addressed to Douglas Burden, Cooper lamented:
The rights over the character didn't flare up again until 1975, when Universal Studios and Dino De Laurentiis were fighting over who would get to do a King Kong remake for 1976. De Laurentiis came up with $200,000 to buy the remake rights from RKO[16]. When Universal got wind of this, they filed a lawsuit against RKO claiming that they had a verbal agreement from them in regards to the remake. During the legal battles that followed, which eventually included RKO counter suing Universal, as well as De Laurentiis filing a lawsuit claiming interference, Colonel Richard Cooper (Merian's son and now head of the Cooper estate) jumped into the fray.[17]
During the battles, Universal discovered that the copyright of the Lovelace novelization had expired without renewal, thus making the King Kong story a public domain one. Universal argued that they should be able to make a movie based on the novel without infringing on anyone's copyright because the characters in the story were in the public domain within the context of the public domain story.[18] Richard Cooper then filed a cross-claim against RKO claiming while the publishing rights to the novel had not been renewed, his estate still had control over the plot/story of King Kong.[17]
In a four day bench trial in Los Angeles, Judge Manuel Real made the final decision and gave his verdict on November 24 1976, affirming that the King Kong novelization and serialization were indeed in the public domain, and Universal could make its movie as long as it didn't infringe on the 1933 RKO film[19] (Universal postponed their plans to film a King Kong movie, called The Legend of King Kong, for at least 18 months, after cutting a deal with Dino de Laurentiis that included a percentage of Box Office profits from his remake.)[20]
However on December 6, 1976, Judge Real made a subsequent ruling, which held that all the rights in the name, character, and story of King Kong (outside of the original film and its sequel) belonged to Merian C Cooper's estate. This ruling, which became known as the Cooper Judgement expressly stated that it wouldn't change the previous ruling that publishing rights of the novel and serialization were in the public domain. It was a huge victory that affirmed the position Merian C Cooper had maintained for years.[19] Shortly thereafter, Richard Cooper sold all his rights (excluding worldwide book and periodical publishing rights) to Universal in December 1976. In 1980 Judge Real dismissed the claims that were brought forth by RKO and Universal 4 years earlier and reinstated the Cooper judgement.[21]
In 1982 Universal filed a lawsuit against Nintendo. Nintendo had created an impish ape character called Donkey Kong in 1981 and were reaping huge profits over the video game machines. Universal claimed that Nintendo was infringing on their copyright because Donkey Kong was a blatant rip-off of King Kong.[21] During the court battle and subsequent appeal, the courts ruled that Universal did not have exclusive rights to the King Kong character. While they had a majority of the rights, they didn't outright own the King Kong name and character[22] The courts ruling noted that the name, title, and character of Kong no longer signified a single source of origin. The courts also pointed out that Kong rights were held by three parties:
The judge then ruled that:
Because Universal didn't have exclusive ownership of the King Kong name and character (only the majority of the rights but not all of them) and because the courts ruled that there was simply no likelihood of people confusing Donkey Kong with King Kong.[22] Universal lost the case and the subsequent appeal.
Since the court case, Universal still retains the majority of the character rights. In 1986 they opened a King Kong ride called King Kong Encounter at their Universal Studios Tour theme park in Hollywood (which was destroyed in 2008 by a backlot fire), and followed it up with the Kongfrontation ride at their Orlando park in 1990 (which was closed down in 2002 due to maintiance issues). They also finally made a King Kong film of their own, King Kong (2005).
The Cooper estate still retains publishing rights. In 1990 they licensed a six issue comic book adaptation of the novel to Monster Comics, and commissioned an illustrated novel in 1994 called Anthony Browne's King Kong. In 2004 and 2005, they commissioned a new novelization to be written called Merian C Cooper's King Kong to replace the original Lovelace novel, (The original novel's publishing rights are still in the public domain. Anyone can publish it as long as it is a word for word reprint.) and Kong: King of Skull Island, a prequel/sequel novel that's tied into the original story.
RKO (whose rights consisted of only the original film and its sequel) had its film library acquired by Ted Turner in 1986 via his company Turner Entertainment. Turner merged his company into Time Warner in 1995, which is how they own the rights to those two films today.
DDL (whose rights were limited to only their 1976 remake) did a sequel in 1986 called King Kong Lives (but they still needed Universal's permission to do it[25]). Today most of DDL's film library is owned by Studio Canal, which includes the rights to those two films.
| Toho character | |
|---|---|
| Kong | |
| Species | Irradiated Gorilla |
| Alias | king Kong<usa />Gorilla |
| Height | 20-45 metres |
| Weight | 25,000 tons |
| Relationships | Mechani-Kong (Robot Replica) King Kong (Counterpart) |
| Major enemies | Oodako Godzilla Gorosaurus Mechani-Kong Greenman |
| First appearance | King Kong vs. Godzilla |
| Created by | Merian C. Cooper |
| Portrayed by | Shoichi Hirose Haruo Nakajima |
This King Kong is a Toho rendition of the original Hollywood version. He appeared in Toho Studio's successful film King Kong vs. Godzilla and would later reappear in the film King Kong Escapes. This Kong differs greatly from the original in size and abilities.
Among Kaiju, King Kong is suggested to be among the most powerful in terms of raw physical force, possessing strength and durability that rivals that of Godzilla himself. As one of the few mammal based Kaiju, Kong's most distinctive feature is his intelligence. He's demonstrated the ability to learn and adapt to an opponent's fighting style, identify and exploit weaknesses in an enemy, and is even capable of utilizing his environment to stage ambushes and traps.
In King Kong vs Godzilla, Kong was scaled to be 45 meters. Like most Kaiju, Kong was given a power weapon. He possessed the ability to become stronger by drawing power from electric energy. When fully charged, Kaiju Kong could direct this power against an opponent by means of an electric touch attack. [26]
In King Kong Escapes (a stand on its own movie loosely based on The King Kong Show), Kong was scaled to be 65 feet tall (20 meters). He was based more on the original Kong, in that he doesn't have any special powers other then his great strength and intelligence.[27]
Unlike the Hollywood version, this Kong does not reside on Skull Island. In the first film he lives on Faroe Island, while in the second film he lives on Mondo Island.
Tiger Electronics released various King Kong games in the early 1980s. These include
Epoch Co. released two LCD games in 1982. One was King Kong: New York,[37] and the other was King Kong: Jungle[38]
Konami released 2 games based on the film King Kong Lives in 1986. The first game was King Kong 2: Ikari no Megaton Punch for the Famicom, and the second was King Kong 2,[39] for the MSX computer. These games were only released in Japan.
Data East released a pinball game[40] in 1990.
Planet Interactive released a Game Boy Advance game based on Kong: The Animated Series in 2002.[41]
Majesco Games released a Game Boy Advance game based on the straight to video animated film Kong: King of Atlantis in 2005.[42]
Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie which is based on the 2005 remake was released on all video game platforms. It was the first game released by Ubisoft on the Xbox 360.
Taiyo Elec Co released a King Kong Pachinko game in 2007.[43]
King Kong, as well as the series of films featuring him, have been featured many times in popular culture outside of the films themselves, in forms ranging from straight copies to parodies and joke references, and in media from comics to video games.
An animated King Kong appears in The Beatles' 1968 movie Yellow Submarine, and The Simpsons spoofed King Kong during a segment of their "Treehouse of Horror III" Halloween episode. King Kong appears among the good guys in an episode of South Park in "Imaginationland" Episode.
A science fiction short story, Andrew Fox's "The Man Who Would be Kong", is about an old man with memories of having starred - as Kong himself - in the 1933 film.
Universal Studios had two popular King Kong rides at their theme parks in Hollywood and Orlando.
The first King Kong ride was part of the Universal Studios Studio Tour (Hollywood) in Hollywood. The ride opened in 1986 and was destroyed in 2008 in a major fire. Days after the fire it was announced that the Kong attraction would not be rebuilt and would be replaced by something else[44].
A second more elaborate ride was constructed at the Orlando park in 1990. It was called Kongfrontation. The ride was closed down in 2002.
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