Trivia / King Kong

• Executive Meddling: The reason that the titular monster is called King Kong, some higher ups at the studio thought that if the monster was just called Kong it would sound too "oriental" and also that it might confused with the film Chang, due to the similar names.
• Missing Episode: A twofer, and both from Japan.
  • The first is Wasei Kingu Kongu from 1933. Despite what a few surviving screencaps may suggest, its not a giant monster film at all, but rather a slapstick comedy about a homeless man who wears a King Kong suit as part of his vaudeville act. It IS official, however—RKO Pictures themselves commissioned its creation, and it played as a bonus short before screenings of the Japanese dubbed 1933 movie. Alas, it is believed that all copies of the film were lost in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945.
  • Next is King Kong Appears in Edo, released in 1938. Once again, its not a giant monster film at all, but a standard action film set in feudal Japan. The film's villain just happens to have a pet gorilla named King Kong (he's not even particularly big, either—the size of a large man at best). Unlike the previous film, this one used the Kong name without approval. That alone probably would have kept it from ever resurfacing, but in the end the film suffered the same fate as Wasei Kingu Kongu, lost forever when all known prints were destroyed in the Hiroshima bombing.
• Referenced by...: Has its own page.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: The rights of Kong are spread over numerous companies, including Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios, Toho, and The Cooper estate, and this has strongly hampered his appearances in films and other media, including preventing him from reappearing in Godzilla films for nearly sixty years. Nintendo once even got sued by Universal because they argued Donkey Kong was too similar to King Kong (although Universal ended up losing that case).
• What Could Have Been:
  • The Adventures of Kid Kong. After "King Kong Lives'' flopped in theaters, producer Dino De Laurentiis tried to keep the franchise going via a cartoon continuation starring Kong's teenage son. Gifted with the ability to shrink to the size of a mouse or grow to the size of his late father, Kid and a group of human children would travel the world, fighting monsters and evading the evil billionaire industrialist Rex Thorne, owner of Petrox Oil (the company that discovered Kong in the 1976 film). De Laurentiis took it to Creator/Filmation, where president Lou Scheimer showed great enthusiasm for the project. Unfortunately, ownership rights arose (Scheimer wanted 50/50 ownership while De Laurentiis viewed it strictly as work for hire) and the whole thing died then and there.
  • In the 1990's, Dark Horse Comics had plans to makes comics based off of King Kong just as they had Alien, Predator, Gamera and Godzilla. Their plans included a Comic-Book Adaptation of the original film as was as crossovers that involved the Aliens, the Predators, The Rocketeer and even Tarzan.
  • A King Kong reboot titled Kong Rising was planned in the late 90s/early 2000s. The ultimately-unrelated-in-the-final-product movie Deep Rising was planned as a prequel to this film.
  • Back in April of 2017, Mar Vista Television and I M Global Television announced a full on live-action King Kong TV show, called King Kong: Skull Island. It apparently would've taken place after the original film, years later where a group of explorers make the grand return to Skull Island, and meet Kong's mate and offspring. It apparently would've also featured a "female led, multicutural ensemble". For whatever reason though, it never got off the ground.
  • Trendmasters, the toy company famous for its line of Godzilla action figures, also had plans to do a line based on King Kong, but were never able to obtain the rights before they closed up shop. They did get the first line made however and it merely consisted of Kong figures of various sizes in the same pose with the addition of one play set of Kong bursting out of a mountain that had army men on it.

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