Peter Jackson To Take On Kong

The Fellowship of the Apes
Source: CNN.com

‘Rings’ director remakes King Kong

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Director Peter Jackson is to begin filming a NZ$200 million (US$110 million) version of the movie “King Kong,” on the outskirts of the New Zealand capital, Wellington.

Jackson, who also shot the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy in New Zealand, will start working on a remake of the 1933 classic late this year, Universal Studios announced.

“I’m making movies today because I saw this film when I was 9 years old,” he said in a Universal statement. “It has been my sustained dream to reinterpret this classic story for a new age.”

Shooting will begin mid-2004 with the aim of releasing the film in 2005. Jackson, and “Rings” writing partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, will start work on the script in October.

The screenplay — a love affair between a giant gorilla and a beautiful woman — will be based on the story by Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace, used for the 1933 RKO Radio Pictures film.

The lead female, originally played by Fay Wray, will need strong vocal chords, Jackson said in an interview for Tuesday’s edition of Wellington’s “Dominion Post” newspaper, noting the part requires a lot of screaming.

Jackson said he would shoot at various locations around the country. Special effects will rival those in his three “Rings” films.

The last act of the movie, originally set in New York, would be built in Wellington because filming in Manhattan would be too expensive, Jackson said. It would also be difficult to recapture the look of the 1930s.

“We’ll just find some flat land and build a big back block set of New York streets and then use our computers to extend the buildings, make the streets longer and the buildings higher,” he told the paper. “It may just be a field somewhere on someone’s farmland.”

“King Kong” will be computer-generated and as real as the wretched Gollum in “The Two Towers,” he said.

Jackson said he was approached six months ago by Universal who asked if he was still interested in making “King Kong.” He didn’t need any convincing.

“King Kong had a profound effect on me. It changed my life. It literally made me want to become a film maker,” he told the paper. “It really got me excited about the magic of film, the escapism of film and special effects.”

The movie will be at least the second “King Kong” remake. A 1976 version starred Jessica Lange.