If you feel like reading  Now is probably a good time to mention that Jackson's epic, $207 million remake of "King Kong," is a surprisingly tender, even heartbreaking, film. Like the original, it's a tragic tale of beauty and the beast. Unlike the original, which was 100 minutes long, Jackson's version is a Kong-size three hours. "A few people have already asked me why we're taking twice as long to tell essentially the same story," says the director. "And I don't really know. We've been asking that ourselves. I'm going to have to come up with a better answer." May we cut in? The best answer—the only answer, really—is the movie itself. Earlier this month, Jackson invited NEWSWEEK to New Zealand for an exclusive first look at the finished (OK, nearly finished) product, and he proved once again that he might be the only guy whose films are worth getting on a plane and flying halfway around the planet to see. If the 44-year-old Kiwi felt any pressure over following up "The Lord of the Rings," you won't find a hint of it on screen. Some critics will complain that the film's length is an act of Oscar-drunk hubris, but while "Kong" may be indulgent, it's not pretentious. And it's certainly never dull. Jackson has honored his favorite film in the best possible way: by recapturing its heart-pounding, escapist glee. The movie's plot, which Jackson fleshed out with Fran Walsh, his life partner, and Philippa Boyens, his screenwriter and next-door neighbor, will sound familiar to "Kong" fans. Maverick filmmaker Carl Denham (Black) loses the lead actress in his new adventure flick at the last minute, so he plucks off the street a beauty named Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts, in the role made iconic by Fay Wray), then puts her on a boat with his devoted crew and sets sail for the mysterious Skull Island. (Denham tries to keep their destination a secret, but one crew member eventually demands to know. "It has a local name," Denham says. "I'm warning you, it doesn't sound good.") After a bumpy arrival, the crew runs into some trouble with the natives, and then some serious trouble with the island's resident alpha male: a 25-foot gorilla with a nasty temper and a weakness for blondes. There are only two differences from the original that are crucial to note. Ann's love interest, Jack Driscoll (Brody), was the ship's first mate in the 1933 version; this time around, he is Denham's screenwriter, an Arthur Miller type who learns that if you want to get the girl, actions speak louder than words—even for a writer. The other major difference is Kong. Jackson's updated ape is still king of the jungle, but he's getting a bit long in the snaggletooth. In human terms, he's pushing 50. His jaw is offset and his right eyebrow droops from long-ago scrapes with dinosaurs. His fur is matted and mucky, with bald patches here and there from the scar tissue. And he's developing a potbelly. "Peter really wanted a sense that Kong is old and grizzled and scarred," says Boyens, "because it tells a story of being alone. And of having to survive in the most dangerous place on earth." Kong's existence is pure brutality—until Ann comes along. "She sparks his curiosity," says Jackson. "It's the first time he's ever empathized with another living creature." Ann, thinking the rest of her shipmates are dead, comes to depend on Kong for protection. Their relationship is poignantly drawn—although after Kong is dragged to New York City in chains, there's a scene on a frozen pond in Central Park that tilts toward the corny. It must have made Jackson impatient, too. He ends it abruptly with a giddy blast of artillery fire. To create Kong, Jackson reassembled essentially the same team that produced Gollum—a group led by visual-effects supervisor Joe Letteri and creature captain Gino Acevedo, who finally got to make use of the scrapbook of gorilla photos he's been keeping since he was a kid. So it's no surprise that they've worked another miracle. Actor Andy Serkis, who "played" Gollum, is also back for more, taking on Kong this time. Once again, he puts a big, thumping heart inside a digital body. To prepare for the role, Serkis asked Jackson if he could fly to Rwanda and study gorillas in their natural habitat. Jackson, fearing for Serkis's safety, said no. "I told him, 'Just go to the zoo.' Then one day we got a phone call from Andy in Rwanda. I thought, 'Oh, the bastard's gone there without permission!' Andy was just unstoppable." Serkis spent three weeks in the mountains at a gorilla preserve and got tight with one of the animals there, a female named Zaire. "She fancied me," he says with pride. "She got very jealous when my wife came to visit. She actually threw a bottle of water at her." (Lesson one: if a gorilla fancies you, don't let her know you're seeing someone else.) Jackson's talent with digital creatures tends to overshadow the fact that he's pretty deft with humans, too. Watts, with those honest eyes, is the soul of the film. "I think Naomi is a fantastic actress," says Walsh, "and if you have anything less than fantastic in that role, the film probably won't work. She has a kind of courage about finding something meaningful to her and bringing it into the film. And it never feels like she's drawing on a bag of tricks." She is also, as Jack Black helpfully points out, hot, and well paired with her romantic leading man. "Adrien and Naomi—I wanna see them get it on," he says. Black, meanwhile, is the surprise pick. Jackson and Walsh first thought of him during the Christmas holiday of 2003, when their two young children watched "School of Rock" no fewer than 25 times. What caught their eye was Black's talent for playing "an obsessive, rascally character," says Jackson. That dovetailed with their take on Denham: a born adventurer, just like the guy in the 1933 film, but far more vainglorious and even a bit of a con man. Jackson's Denham is a blend of a 1930s expeditionary filmmaker (like Merian Cooper, the basis for the original Denham) and the young Orson Welles, who once accepted money to direct a film and then went off and shot a completely different one without telling his investors. Black seemed perfect. "But we didn't want to officially approach him until we figured out if he was a nice guy," says Jackson. So during the 2004 awards season, when Black was making the rounds for "School of Rock" and Jackson and Walsh were promoting "Return of the King," "we kept trying to engineer these little collisions with Jack at public events," he says. "We'd go, 'I think he's headed toward the door! Quick! Move!' We'd cut across his path and I'd go, 'Oh, Jack! Hi! I'm Peter, this is Fran. Loved 'School of Rock!' We were doing reconnaissance. Surveillance. Stalking." Nearly two years later, on a crisp afternoon in Wellington, Jackson is curled up on a sofa with a cup of tea at his sprawling postproduction studio, built with some of the $3 billion spoils of "Lord of the Rings." He's barefoot as usual, and looks alarmingly tired. Just 14 days remain before he must deliver his finished film to Universal, and he still has miles to go. Since the world last saw him collecting Oscar after Oscar for "Return of the King," he's dieted and lost nearly 70 pounds. He still looks quite hobbity, but he's more Frodo now, less Sam Gamgee. "I was just tired of being heavy, tired of being unwell," he says. "I'm not unwell anymore, but I am still tired." He's earned a rest. Jackson's "Kong" laps the 1933 movie in virtually every department yet still manages to leave you in awe of the pioneering original. Even when prodded, Jackson can't bring himself to criticize Cooper and Schoedsack's work. "I wouldn't use the word 'flaws'," he says, after a reporter does just that. Yes, the original's "oonga-boonga" depiction of the island natives is flat-out racist—but their presence is essential to the story. Jackson's solution is to throw logic at the problem: the natives have gone from laughably primitive to downright vicious. Which makes sense. If you were stuck on an island with killer dinosaurs and giant gorillas, you'd be edgy too. At this juncture, not even "Kong," which opens on Dec. 14, will be able save Hollywood from a lame year at the box office, but it will ensure that 2005 wraps up with a few exclamation points. Of course, Walsh, the trio's mordantly funny voice of doom, isn't convinced yet. She chalks it up to being raised in New Zealand, where you are taught to disdain those who show too much pride in their work. She and Boyens are even a little embarrassed about all those Oscars. "Someone said to me, 'My god, it must feel amazing to have an Oscar in your house'," says Boyens. "And I said, 'Well, yeah, but my neighbors have six.' I couldn't help but undercut myself a little bit." Walsh got so self-conscious about those six statuettes in her and Jackson's home that she stuck Post-it notes on them and gave each one a name: Brent, Trevor, Neville, Muzza, Dion and Lysander. Of the three filmmakers, Boyens is the boastful one—but only on behalf of her friends. Over dinner and a few glasses of white wine at an Italian restaurant in downtown Wellington, she lavishes praise on her boss. "I know I shouldn't say this," she begins, "but when other directors see this movie, they're going to f---ing give up." Forgive her. She's smitten. "Kong" may not drive any filmmakers into a career crisis, but one thing is for sure: they'll all be taking notes. |
King Kong movie 3 hours long
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oceanmotion 17,358 posts
Seen 2 years ago
Registered 18 years ago -
Kay 21,321 posts
Seen 3 hours ago
Registered 18 years agoA film review? In gaming?
Three hours long? Peter Jackson's been making too many LOTR films...
K -
Thank God for that. Now Andy Serkis has got something else to do other than that tedious bloody Gollum thing that he insists on breaking into EVERY BLOODY TIME ANYONE POINTS A CAMERA AT HIM!
And please give him an oscar nomination this time - even if he doesn't deserve it - just to shut him up. Thanks.
And going to Rwanda instead of the zoo? Ironic that the Gollum actor is being a little precioussss
Edited by Fozzie_bear at 14:51:08 28-11-2005 -
Freek 7,682 posts
Seen 8 years ago
Registered 18 years agoIf you need your mo cap actor to do movement studies for the most import character of your highly anticipated mega blockbuster movie. Are you going to send him to the Zoo or send him to the jungle to see the animals in thier natural habitad? -
How do gorillas in zoos walk then? Do they strut along with walking canes?
And if kong spends most of the film in New York then, yes, I'd go for the city dwelling gorillas.gif)
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Freek 7,682 posts
Seen 8 years ago
Registered 18 years agoFozzie_bear wrote:
How do gorillas in zoos walk then? Do they strut along with walking canes?
And if kong spends most of the film in New York then, yes, I'd go for the city dwelling gorillas
You need more then how they walk. It's about how they behave and react, animals in zoos have become tame to a certain extent and adapt thier behaviour to humans.
You do a multi million dollar movie you want the best, you want the real thing.
Kong in New York is all about a fish out of water running a mock, not a tame animal in a cage.
And I have a feeling him doing Golum all the time is more down the interviewer going "come on, do Gollum for us, the fans'll love it!".
Edited by Freek at 15:01:40 28-11-2005 -
Freek wrote:
Kong in New York is all about a fish out of water running a mock, not a tame animal in a cage.
Surely Kong in New York is about a big monkey falling for a blonde babe then climbing up a couple of buildings? If you want realistic reactions to humans then he's not going to go all soppy over her is he?
I dunno, maybe he was right. Just seems to take himself a liitle to seriously given that he's a placeholder for a cartoon -
symmetry 508 posts
Seen 6 months ago
Registered 17 years agoDon't know about the film being 3 hours long, but that post took about 3 hours to read... -
GrandTheftApu 6,117 posts
Seen 2 years ago
Registered 18 years agoFozzie_bear wrote:
How do gorillas in zoos walk then? Do they strut along with walking canes?
Nah, they just sit in the corner hugging themselves gently bashing their heads against the wall. -
GrandTheftApu wrote:
Fozzie_bear wrote:
How do gorillas in zoos walk then? Do they strut along with walking canes?
Nah, they just sit in the corner hugging themselves gently bashing their heads against the wall.
Ok. That'd be a crap King Kong, I'll give you that. -
Tiger_Walts 16,674 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 19 years ago/didn't know Lutz's missus was a blonde -
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