Misplaced Pages

#452547

93-767: During its development, Ebirah, Horror of the Deep was intended to feature King Kong , but the character was replaced by Godzilla. The film was released to theaters in Japan on December 17, 1966, and was released directly to television in the United States under the title Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster in 1968 by Continental Distributing . The film was followed by the eighth film in the Godzilla franchise, Son of Godzilla , released on December 16, 1967. After Yata

186-484: A King Kong and Godzilla crossover film (in the continuity of the 2014 Godzilla movie ), since Legendary still had the rights to make more Godzilla movies with Warner Bros. before their contract with Toho expired in 2020. Richard Cooper, through the Merian C. Cooper Estate, retained publishing rights for the content that Judge Real had ruled on December 6, 1976. In 1990, they licensed a six-issue comic book adaptation of

279-588: A King Kong film of their own, King Kong (2005). In the summer of 2010, Universal opened a new 3D King Kong ride called King Kong: 360 3-D at their Hollywood park, replacing the destroyed King Kong Encounter . In July 2016, Universal opened a new King Kong attraction called Skull Island: Reign of Kong at Islands of Adventure in Orlando. In July 2013, Legendary Pictures made an agreement with Universal to market, co-finance, and distribute Legendary's films for five years starting in 2014 and ending in 2019,

372-503: A King Kong remake as far back as 1976. They finally followed through almost 30 years later, with a three-hour film directed by Peter Jackson . Jackson opted to make Kong a gigantic silverback gorilla without any anthropomorphic features. This Kong looked and behaved more like a real gorilla: he had a large herbivore's belly, walked on his knuckles without any upright posture, and even beat his chest with his palms as opposed to clenched fists. In order to ground his Kong in realism, Jackson and

465-681: A building came from him seeing a plane flying over the New York Insurance Building , then the tallest building in the world. He came up with the ending before the rest of the story as he stated, "Without any conscious effort of thought I immediately saw in my mind's eye a giant gorilla on top of the building". Cooper also was influenced by Douglas Burden's accounts of the Komodo dragon , and wanted to pit his terror gorilla against dinosaur-sized versions of these reptiles, stating to Burden: "I also had firmly in mind to giantize both

558-401: A deliberate, systematic campaign to coerce all of Nintendo's third party licensees to either stop marketing Donkey Kong products or pay Universal royalties. Finally, Universal's conduct amounted to an abuse of judicial process, and in that sense caused a longer harm to the public as a whole. Depending on the commercial results, Universal alternatively argued to the courts, first, that King Kong

651-405: A film loosely based on Rankin/Bass ' The King Kong Show (1966–1969). In 1976, Dino De Laurentiis produced a modern remake of the original film directed by John Guillermin . A sequel, King Kong Lives , followed a decade later featuring a Lady Kong. Another remake of the original , set in 1933, was released in 2005 by filmmaker Peter Jackson . Kong: Skull Island (2017), set in 1973,

744-509: A former president of RKO Studio Corp.) confirming that Cooper had only licensed the rights to the character for the two RKO pictures and nothing more. 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 that he could do). Cooper's lawyer had received

837-433: A letter from John Beck's lawyer, Gordon E. Youngman, that stated: For the sake of the record, I wish to state that I am not in negotiation with you or Mr. Cooper or anyone else to define Mr. Cooper's rights in respect of King Kong. His rights are well defined, and they are non-existent, except for certain limited publication rights. In a letter addressed to Douglas Burden, Cooper lamented: It seems my hassle over King Kong

930-496: A location inside Japan. The second and final one is Son of Godzilla (1967). Director Jun Fukuda  notes that producer Tomoyuki Tanaka was not particularly active on this production, with the exception of being involved with the budget. The producer would, however, visit the set "often" to watch progress but only as an observer. Daiyo was originally to be played by Noriko Takahashi , from Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965), but fell ill with appendicitis during production

1023-469: A makeshift lightning rod . Godzilla fights Ebirah, but the huge crustacean escapes. Godzilla is then attacked by a giant condor and a squadron of Red Bamboo fighter jets . Using its atomic breath, Godzilla destroys the jets and kills the giant bird. Ryota and his friends retrieve the missing Yata and free the enslaved natives as Godzilla begins to destroy the Red Bamboo's base of operations, smashing

SECTION 10

#1732783382453

1116-425: A nightmarish gorilla monster. As he described Kong in a 1930 memo: "His hands and feet have the size and strength of steam shovels ; his girth is that of a steam boiler. This is a monster with the strength of a hundred men. But more terrifying is the head—a nightmare head with bloodshot eyes and jagged teeth set under a thick mat of hair, a face half-beast half-human". Willis O'Brien created an oil painting depicting

1209-587: A number of sequels, remakes, spin-offs, imitators, parodies, cartoons, books, comics , video games, theme park rides, and a stage play . King Kong has also crossed over into other franchises, such as Planet of the Apes , and encountered characters from other franchises in crossover media, such as the Toho movie monster Godzilla , pulp characters Doc Savage and Tarzan , and the Justice League . His role in

1302-493: A remake of the original King Kong Glow-In-The-Dark Model Kit, and a video game developed by IguanaBee called Skull Island: Rise of Kong . In April 2016, Joe DeVito sued Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros., producers of the film Kong: Skull Island , for using elements of his Skull Island universe, which he claimed that he created and that the producers had used without his permission. Devito partnered with Dynamite Entertainment to produce comic books and board games based on

1395-698: A sacrifice (in the 1976 remake, her character is named "Dwan"). A pseudo-documentary about Skull Island that appears on the DVD for the 2005 remake (originally seen on the Sci-Fi Channel at the time of its theatrical release) gives Kong's scientific name as Megaprimatus kong ("Megaprimatus", deriving from the prefix " mega- " and the Latin words " primate " and " primatus ", means "big primate " or "big supreme being") and states that his species may be related to Gigantopithecus . However, that genus of giant ape

1488-639: A single bit of empathy for another living creature in his long life; it has been a brutal life that he's lived. In the 2017 film Kong: Skull Island , Kong is scaled to be 104 feet (31.7 m) tall, making it the second largest and largest American incarnation in the series until the 2021 film Godzilla vs. Kong , in which he became the largest incarnation in the series, standing at 337 feet (102.7 m). Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts stated in regard to Kong's immense stature: The thing that most interested me was, how big do you need to make [Kong], so that when someone lands on this island and doesn't believe in

1581-420: 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 judgment", expressly stated that it would not change the previous ruling that publishing rights of the novel and serialization were in the public domain. It was a huge victory that affirmed

1674-414: A tower that causes a countdown that will destroy the island in a nuclear explosion . Godzilla fights Ebirah and defeats it, ripping its claws off, and forcing it to retreat into the sea. The natives await for Mothra to carry them off in a large net. However, when she gets to the island, Mothra is challenged by Godzilla due to a previous confrontation . Mothra manages to repel Godzilla and save her people and

1767-408: A very lonely creature, absolutely solitary. It must be one of the loneliest existences you could ever possibly imagine. Every day, he has to battle for his survival against very formidable dinosaurs on the island, and it's not easy for him. He's carrying the scars of many former encounters with dinosaurs. I'm imagining he's probably 100 to 120 years old by the time our story begins. And he has never felt

1860-579: Is an adolescent when we meet him in the film; he's still growing into his role as alpha". While one of the most famous movie icons in history, King Kong's intellectual property status has been questioned since his creation, featuring in numerous allegations and court battles. The rights to the character have always been split up with no single exclusive rights holder. Different parties have also contested that various aspects are public domain material and therefore ineligible for copyright status. When Merian C. Cooper created King Kong, he assumed that he owned

1953-407: Is destined to be a protracted one. They'd make me sorry I ever invented the beast, if I weren't so fond of him! Makes me feel like Macbeth : "Bloody instructions which being taught return to plague the inventor". The rights over the character did not flare up again until 1975, when Universal Studios and Dino De Laurentiis were fighting over who would be able to do a King Kong remake for release

SECTION 20

#1732783382453

2046-423: Is in the island setting which was picked, as islands are much cheaper to make miniatures of compared to cities. This island trend carries on in other movies such as Son of Godzilla . Ebirah, Horror of the Deep was released theatrically in Japan on December 17, 1966, where it was distributed by Toho . The American version of the film was released directly to television by Continental Distributing in 1968 under

2139-465: Is lost at sea, his brother Ryota steals a yacht with his two friends and a bank robber. However, the crew runs afoul of Ebirah, a giant lobster -like creature, and washes ashore on Letchi Island. There, the Red Bamboo, a terrorist organization, manufactures heavy water for selling weapons of mass destruction and a yellow liquid that keeps Ebirah at bay, presumably controlling him. The Red Bamboo has enslaved natives from nearby Infant Island to create

2232-447: Is meant to be a throwback to the '33 version. I don't think there's much similarity at all between our version and Peter [Jackson]'s Kong. That version is very much a scaled-up silverback gorilla, and ours is something that is slightly more exaggerated. A big mandate for us was, "How do we make this feel like a classic movie monster"? Co-producer Mary Parent also stated that Kong is still young and not fully grown as she explains that "Kong

2325-528: Is more closely related to orangutans than to gorillas. Merian C. Cooper became fascinated by gorillas at the age of 6. In 1899, he was given a book from his uncle called Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa . The book, written in 1861, chronicled the adventures of Paul Du Chaillu in Africa and his various encounters with the natives and wildlife there. Cooper became fascinated with

2418-427: Is part of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Entertainment 's Monsterverse , which began with a reboot of Godzilla in 2014. A sequel, Godzilla vs. Kong , once again pitting the characters against one another, was released in 2021. It was followed by the film Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire in 2024, which featured more of Kong's kind. The character is an international pop culture icon , having inspired

2511-676: The Weta Digital crew gave a name to his fictitious species Megaprimatus Kong and suggested it to have evolved from the Gigantopithecus . Kong was the last of his kind. He was portrayed in the film as being quite old, with graying fur and battle-worn with scars, wounds, and a crooked jaw from his many fights against rival creatures. He is the dominant being on the island, the king of his world. Like his film predecessors, he possesses considerable intelligence and great physical strength and also appears far more nimble and agile. This Kong

2604-546: The " Eighth Wonder of the World ". Kong escapes and climbs the Empire State Building , only to fall from the skyscraper after being attacked by weaponized biplanes . Denham comments, "It wasn't the aeroplanes, it was beauty killed the beast", for he climbs the building in the first place only in an attempt to protect Ann Darrow, an actress originally kidnapped by the natives of the island and offered up to Kong as

2697-425: The "public domain" claims, the courts ruled that Universal acted in bad faith (see Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. ). They were ordered to pay fines and all of Nintendo's legal costs from the lawsuit. That, along with the fact that the courts ruled that there was simply no likelihood of people confusing Donkey Kong with King Kong, caused Universal to lose the case and the subsequent appeal. Since

2790-506: The 1976 film, Kong was scaled to be 42 feet (12.8 m) tall on Skull island and rescaled to be 55 feet (16.8 m) tall in New York. Ten years later, Dino De Laurentiis got the approval from Universal to do a sequel called King Kong Lives . This Kong had more or less the same appearance and abilities, but tended to walk on his knuckles more often and was enlarged, scaled to 60 feet (18.3 m). Universal Studios had planned to do

2883-428: The Apes . In 2016, DeVito ArtWorks, through its licensing program, licensed its King Kong property to RocketFizz for use in the marketing of a soft drink called King Kong Cola , and had plans for a live action TV show co-produced between MarVista Entertainment and IM Global. Other products that have been produced through this licensing program include Digital Trading Cards, Board Games, a Virtual Reality Arcade Game,

Ebirah, Horror of the Deep - Misplaced Pages Continue

2976-669: The California district court specifically found that King Kong had no secondary meaning". While they had a majority of the rights, they did not outright own the King Kong name and character. The courts ruling noted that the name, title, and character of Kong no longer signified a single source of origin so exclusive trademark rights were impossible. The courts also pointed out that the Kong rights were held by three parties: The judge then ruled that "Universal thus owns only those rights in

3069-512: The Cooper estate) jumped into the fray. 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

3162-646: The Famous Artists Syndicate in Chicago in 1932 stating (in regard to Kong), "The rights of this are owned by Mr. Merian C. Cooper". Cooper however lost key documents through the years (he discovered these papers were missing after he returned from his World War II military service) such as a key informal yet binding letter from Mr. Ayelsworth (the then-president of the RKO Studio Corp.) and a formal binding letter from Mr. B. B. Kahane (also

3255-458: The Godzilla and Ebirah suits were filmed through the glass of a water-filled aquarium, with some scenes of the Godzilla suit shot separately underwater as well. Haruo Nakajima wore a wet suit under the Godzilla suit for every scene that required him to be in the water, which took a week to complete the water scenes, Nakajima stated, "I worked overtime until about eight o'clock every day. I lived in

3348-559: The Japanese version was included in a Blu-ray box set released by the Criterion Collection, which included all 15 films from the franchise's Shōwa era . There are two English versions. The first one was dubbed in the 1960s by a company called Titra and featured Hal Linden . It was featured on VHS releases. The second one was dubbed with extra scenes and dialogue for DVD and Blu-ray releases. The Titra version did not use

3441-471: The King Kong character such as model kits produced by Aurora Plastics Corporation . Cooper's executive assistant, Charles B. FitzSimons, said that these companies should be negotiating through him and Cooper for such licensed products and not RKO. In a letter to Robert Bendick, Cooper stated: My hassle is about King Kong. I created the character long before I came to RKO and have always believed I retained subsequent picture rights and other rights. I sold to RKO

3534-403: The King Kong name and character that RKO, Cooper, or DDL do not own". The court of appeals would also note: First, Universal knew that it did not have trademark rights to King Kong, yet it proceeded to broadly assert such rights anyway. This amounted to a wanton and reckless disregard of Nintendo's rights. Second, Universal did not stop after it asserted its rights to Nintendo. It embarked on

3627-494: The New Year's season would see the release of a new King Kong movie. The concept was first pitched by Shinichi Sekizawa on July 13, 1966. However, Rankin-Bass was displeased that Toho was dead-set on Jun Fukuda directing the live-action and Eiji Tsuburaya's protege, Sadamasa Arikawa, directing special effects. Rankin-Bass was equally dead set on the creative team being Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya. When Toho refused to budge and

3720-433: The character, which he had conceived in 1929, outright. Cooper maintained that he had only licensed the character to RKO for the initial film and sequel, but had otherwise owned his own creation. In 1935, Cooper began to feel something was amiss when he was trying to get a Tarzan vs. King Kong project off the ground for Pioneer Pictures (where he had assumed management of the company). After David O. Selznick suggested

3813-468: The company behind the Walking with Dinosaurs arena show. In 1996, artist/writer Joe DeVito partnered with the Merian C. Cooper estate to write and/or illustrate various publications based on Merian C. Cooper's King Kong property through his company, DeVito ArtWorks, LLC. Through this partnership, DeVito created the prequel/sequel story Skull Island on which DeVito based a pair of original novels relating

Ebirah, Horror of the Deep - Misplaced Pages Continue

3906-502: The context of the public domain story. Richard Cooper then filed a cross-claim against RKO claiming that, while the publishing rights to the novel had not been renewed, his estate still had control over the plot/story of King Kong. 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

3999-534: 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 maintenance issues). They also finally made

4092-540: The design: We sort of went back to the 1933 version in the sense that he's a bipedal creature that walks in an upright position, as opposed to the anthropomorphic, anatomically correct silverback gorilla that walks on all fours. Our Kong was intended to say, like, this isn't just a big gorilla or a big monkey. This is something that is its own species. It has its own set of rules, so we can do what we want and we really wanted to pay homage to what came before ... and yet do something completely different, and if anything, our Kong

4185-621: The different narratives varies, ranging from an egregious monster to a tragic antihero . The King Kong character was conceived and created by American filmmaker Merian C. Cooper . In the original film, the character's name is Kong, a name given to him by the inhabitants of the fictional " Skull Island " in the Indian Ocean , where Kong lives along with other oversized animals, such as plesiosaurs , pterosaurs , and various dinosaurs . An American film crew, led by Carl Denham , captures Kong and takes him to New York City to be exhibited as

4278-514: The dimensions of a bull gorilla from the American Museum of Natural History telling O'Brien, "Now that's what I want!" When the final model was created, it had the basic look of a gorilla but managed to retain some human-like qualities. For example, Delgado streamlined the body by removing the distinctive paunch and rump of a gorilla. O'Brien would incorporate some characteristics and nuances of an earlier creature he had created in 1915 for

4371-442: The end result, saying that it looked like a cross between a monkey and a man with very long hair. For the second model, O'Brien again asked Delgado to add human features but to tone it down somewhat. The end result (which was rejected) was described as looking like a missing link. Disappointed, Cooper stated, "I want Kong to be the fiercest, most brutal, monstrous damned thing that has ever been seen!" On December 22, 1931, Cooper got

4464-591: The entire movie for dubbing. King Kong King Kong , also referred to simply as Kong , is a fictional giant monster, or kaiju , resembling a gorilla, who has appeared in various media since 1933. Kong has been dubbed the King of the Beasts , and over time, it would also be bestowed the title of the Eighth Wonder of the World , a widely recognized expression within the franchise. His first appearance

4557-409: The film "was like pouring two cups of water into one. I had to cut one sequence after another." What these cut scenes contained are unknown, but Godzilla's infamous helicopter spin of Ebirah, which exists only in publicity photos, was apparently planned for the film, as storyboards exist of the scene. This is the first of two Godzilla films in which a Pacific island is the primary setting, rather than

4650-467: The film after the main character. He stated he liked the "mystery word" aspect of Kong's name and that the film should carry "the name of the leading mysterious, romantic, savage creature of the story" such as with Dracula and Frankenstein. RKO sent a memo to Cooper suggesting the titles Kong: King of Beasts , Kong: The Jungle King , and Kong: The Jungle Beast , which combined his and Selznick's proposed titles. As time went on, Cooper would eventually name

4743-455: The films King Kong vs. Godzilla and King Kong Escapes . ( See below ) In 1975, Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis paid RKO for the remake rights to King Kong . This resulted in King Kong (1976). This Kong was an upright walking anthropomorphic ape, appearing even more human-like than the original. Also like the original, this Kong had semi-human intelligence and vast strength. In

SECTION 50

#1732783382453

4836-444: The following year. De Laurentiis came up with $ 200,000 to buy the remake rights from RKO. When Universal got wind of this, they filed a lawsuit against RKO, claiming that they had a verbal agreement from them regarding the remake. During the legal battles that followed, which eventually included RKO countersuing Universal, as well as De Laurentiis filing a lawsuit claiming interference, Colonel Richard Cooper (Merian's son and now head of

4929-417: The giant ape "Kong". He loved the name, as it had a "mystery sound" to it. After Cooper got to RKO, British mystery writer Edgar Wallace was contracted to write the first draft of the screen story. It was simply referred to as " The Beast ". RKO executives were unimpressed with the bland title. David O. Selznick suggested Jungle Beast as the film's new title, but Cooper was unimpressed and wanted to name

5022-429: The giant gorilla menacing a jungle heroine and hunter for Cooper. However, when it came time for O'Brien and Marcel Delgado to sculpt the animation model , Cooper decided to backpedal on the half-human look for the creature and became adamant that Kong be a gorilla. O'Brien on the other hand, wanted him to be almost human-like to gain audience empathy, and told Delgado to "make that ape almost human". Cooper laughed at

5115-484: The gorilla and your dragons to make them really huge. However I always believed in personalizing and focusing attention on one main character and from the very beginning I intended to make it the gigantic gorilla, no matter what else I surrounded him with". Around this time, Cooper began to refer to his project as a "giant terror gorilla picture" featuring "a gigantic semi-humanoid gorilla pitted against modern civilization". When designing King Kong, Cooper wanted him to be

5208-507: The human heroes. Godzilla also escapes just before the bomb detonates and destroys the island. By 1966, Toho had their sights set on bringing back King Kong back to the silver screen. Their deal with RKO allowed them the use of King Kong for five years, an agreement that would be over in 1967. Why Toho waited so long to produce another Kong film is unknown. The planned movie, Operation Robinson Caruso: King Kong vs. Ebirah (ロビンソン·クルーソー作戦 キングコング対エビラ, Robinson Kurūsō Sakusen: Kingu Kongu tai Ebira),

5301-405: The idea of myth, the idea of wonder – when we live in a world of social and civil unrest, and everything is crumbling around us, and technology and facts are taking over – how big does this creature need to be, so that when you stand on the ground and you look up at it, the only thing that can go through your mind is: "That's a god!" He also stated that the original 1933 look was the inspiration for

5394-468: The island of Komodo and his encounter with the Komodo dragons was a big influence on the Kong story. Cooper was fascinated by Burden's adventures as chronicled in his book Dragon Lizards of Komodo where he referred to the animal as the "King of Komodo". It was this phrase along with "Komodo" and "Kongo" [ sic ] (and his overall love for hard sounding "K"-words) that gave him the idea to name

5487-500: The letter "K". Some of his favorite words were " Komodo ", " Kodiak " and " Kodak ". When Cooper was envisioning his giant terror gorilla idea, he wanted to capture a real gorilla from the Congo and have it fight a real Komodo dragon on Komodo Island (this scenario would eventually evolve into Kong's battle with the tyrannosaur on Skull Island when the film was produced a few years later at RKO). Cooper's friend Douglas Burden's trip to

5580-470: The models and sets scaling Kong to be only 18 feet (5.5 m) tall on Skull Island, and rescaled to be 24 feet (7.3 m) tall in New York. This did not stop Cooper from playing around with Kong's size as he directed the special effect sequences; by manipulating the sizes of the miniatures and the camera angles, he made Kong appear a lot larger than O'Brien wanted, even as large as 60 feet (18.3 m) in some scenes. As Cooper said in an interview: I

5673-415: The motion picture industry. While filming The Four Feathers in Africa, he came into contact with a family of baboons. This gave him the idea to make a picture about primates. A year later when he got to RKO , Cooper wanted to film a "terror gorilla picture". As the story was being fleshed out, Cooper decided to make his gorilla giant sized. Cooper stated that the idea of Kong fighting warplanes on top of

SECTION 60

#1732783382453

5766-494: The movie has minimal composite shots, it is not devoid of them as scenes such as Godzilla's foot composited near actress Kumi Mizuno or a sequence of Mothra composited as her followers rush toward her are some examples of these sequences that made it into the final film. Jun Fukuda was not fond of the film. In an interview, he was quoted saying, "Toho sent me a copy of the VHS tape edition of Godzilla vs The Sea Monsters when it

5859-409: The mystery and excitement of the scenes and action. Concurrently, the Kong bust made for the film was built in scale with a 40-foot (12.2 m) ape, while the full sized hand of Kong was built in scale with a 70-foot (21.3 m) ape. Meanwhile, RKO's promotional materials listed Kong's official height as 50 feet (15.2 m). In the 1960s, Toho Studios from Japan licensed the character for

5952-512: The novelization of the 1933 film to Monster Comics , and commissioned an illustrated novel in 1994 called Anthony Browne's King Kong . In 2013, they became involved with a musical stage play based on the story, called King Kong: The Eighth Wonder of the World which premiered that June in Australia and then on Broadway in November 2018. The production is involved with Global Creatures ,

6045-531: The origin of King Kong: Kong: King of Skull Island and King Kong of Skull Island . In addition, the Cooper/DeVito collaboration resulted in an origin-themed comic book miniseries with Boom! Studios , an expanded rewrite of the original Lovelace novelization, Merian C. Cooper's King Kong (the original novelization's publishing rights are still in the public domain), and various crossovers with other franchises such as Doc Savage , Tarzan and Planet of

6138-533: The position Merian C. Cooper had maintained for years. 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 four years earlier and reinstated the Cooper judgement. In 1982 Universal filed a lawsuit against Nintendo , which had created an impish ape character called Donkey Kong in 1981 and

6231-413: The project to Cooper, the flurry of legal activity over using the Kong character that followed—Pioneer had become a completely independent company by this time and access to properties that RKO felt were theirs was no longer automatic—gave Cooper pause as he came to realize that he might not have full control over this product of his own imagination after all. Years later in 1962, Cooper found out that RKO

6324-615: The property, resulting in the comic book series called King Kong: The Great War published in May 2023. In 2022, DeVito had partnered with Disney to produce a live-action series tentatively called King Kong that explores the origin story of Kong. The series is slated to stream on Disney+ . Stephany Folsom is attached to write the series and to be executive produced by James Wan via his production company Atomic Monster . Teruyoshi Nakano Teruyoshi "Shokei" Nakano ( 中野 昭慶 , Nakano Teruyoshi , October 9, 1935 – June 27, 2022)

6417-453: The public domain, and Universal could make its movie as long as it did not infringe on original elements in the 1933 RKO film, which had not passed into the public domain. 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. However, on December 6, 1976, Judge Real made

6510-508: The recent King Kong cartoon and would feature Honda at the director's helm. Even with the loss of one of the title characters, though, Toho continued with production on Sekizawa's screenplay. Little was done to tweak the script and Godzilla displays a Kong-inspired interest in Daiyo. It's even possible the electric shock to revive Kong was a nod to the ape's love of electricity in King Kong vs. Godzilla . According to Teruyoshi Nakano , Godzilla

6603-420: The right to make the one original picture King Kong and also, later, Son of Kong , but that was all. Cooper and his legal team offered up various documents to bolster the case that Cooper owned King Kong and had 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

6696-473: The scene. For example, if Kong had only been 18 feet high on the top of the Empire State Building, he would have been lost, like a little bug; I constantly juggled the heights of trees and dozens of other things. The one essential thing was to make the audience enthralled with the character of Kong so that they wouldn't notice or care that he was 18 feet high or 40 feet, just as long as he fitted

6789-467: The seat, Toho tried to limit the effects budget. Sadamasa Arikawa lamented that Toho likely did this due to his inexperience and TV history, noting that "Toho couldn't have made too many demands about the budget if Mr. Tsuburaya had been in charge" and that he "was also doing TV work then, so they must have figured I could produce the movie cheaply." To keep the budget down, Toho instructed Arikawa to avoid expensive composite shots as much as possible. Although

6882-476: The silent short The Dinosaur and the Missing Link into the general look and personality of Kong, even going as far as to refer to the creature as "Kong's ancestor". When it came time to film, Cooper agreed that Kong should walk upright at times (mostly in the New York sequences) in order to appear more intimidating. Merian C. Cooper said he was very fond of strong, hard-sounding words that started with

6975-474: The stories involving the gorillas, in particular, Du Chaillu's depiction of a particular gorilla known for its "extraordinary size", that the natives described as "invincible" and the "King of the African Forest". When Du Chaillu and some natives encountered a gorilla later in the book he described it as a "hellish dream creature" that was "half man, half beast". As an adult, Cooper became involved in

7068-453: The story simply Kong while Ruth Rose was writing the final version of the screenplay. Because David O. Selznick thought that audiences would think that the film, with the one word title of Kong , would be mistaken as a docudrama like Grass and Chang , which were one-word titled films that Cooper had earlier produced, he added the "King" to Kong's name in order to differentiate it. In his first appearance in King Kong (1933), Kong

7161-461: The title Godzilla versus the Sea Monster . The film may have received theatrical distribution in the United States as a Walter Reade Jr. Presentation, but this has not been confirmed. It was also featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 as the last episode for the second season. The film was released on DVD on February 8, 2005, by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment . The film was released on Blu-ray on May 6, 2014, by Kraken Releasing . In 2019,

7254-591: The water all day in the suit, and shooting took a week." The Side Monsters that featured in this film were largely dictated by suits and props that were still available from previous films. For example, the Mothra was the same prop seen in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster and the giant condor was a repurposed Rodan prop used in flying scenes. Other places where the low budget of the movie can be seen

7347-422: The water! Generally, in the summer, everybody wants to go in the pool and play, but, when it comes to kaiju movies, it is totally different. Most of the scenes that they shoot in the water are not in the summer, but in the winter. In the middle of winter, shooting started at nine in the morning, going until noon, and then we'd take an hour off. But we'd go from 1:00 P.M. until around 5:00 at night. I needed to stay in

7440-415: The year that Legendary's similar agreement with Warner Bros. Pictures was set to expire. One year later, at San Diego Comic-Con , Legendary announced (as a product of its partnership with Universal), a King Kong origin story, initially titled Skull Island , with Universal distributing. After the film was retitled Kong: Skull Island , Universal allowed Legendary to move to Warner Bros., so they could do

7533-419: The yellow liquid, while the natives hope that Mothra will awaken in her winged, adult form and rescue them. In their efforts to avoid capture, Ryota and his friends, aided by Daiyo, a native girl, come across Godzilla, who previously fought Ghidorah and is now sleeping within a cliffside cavern. The group devises a plan to defeat the Red Bamboo and escape the island. In the process, they awaken Godzilla using

7626-597: Was a co-production with Rankin/Bass , who was about to debut their animated program, The King Kong Show , in September of that same year. According to Toho Special Effects Movies Complete Works, Jun Fukuda was approached about an untitled US–Japanese King Kong co-production April 21, 1966. Even before that, in February 1966, Toho's senior staff member Makoto Fujimoto met with a movie theater owner in Kansai and revealed that

7719-438: Was a gigantic prehistoric ape. While gorilla-like in appearance, he had a vaguely humanoid look and at times walked upright in an anthropomorphic manner. Like most simians, Kong possesses 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", animator Willis O'Brien and his crew built

7812-400: Was a great believer in constantly changing Kong's height to fit the settings and the illusions. He's different in almost every shot; sometimes he's only 18 feet tall and sometimes 60 feet or larger. This broke every rule that O'Bie and his animators had ever worked with, but I felt confident that if the scenes moved with excitement and beauty, the audience would accept any height that fitted into

7905-528: Was a part of the public domain, and then second, that King Kong was not part of the public domain, and that Universal possessed exclusive trademark rights in it. Universal's assertions in court were based not on any good faith belief in their truth, but on the mistaken belief that it could use the courts to turn a profit. Because Universal misrepresented their degree of ownership of King Kong (claiming they had exclusive trademark rights when they knew that they did not) and tried to have it both ways in court regarding

7998-417: Was in the novelization of the 1933 film King Kong from RKO Pictures , with the film premiering a little over two months later. A sequel quickly followed that same year with The Son of Kong , featuring Little Kong, also known as "Kiko". The Japanese film company Toho later produced King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), featuring a giant Kong battling Toho's Godzilla , and King Kong Escapes (1967),

8091-442: 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 film's U.S. copyright holder). Cooper discovered that RKO had also profited from licensed products featuring

8184-512: Was reaping huge profits over the video game machines. Universal claimed that Nintendo was infringing on its copyright because Donkey Kong was a blatant rip-off of King Kong. During the court battle and subsequent appeal, the courts ruled that Universal did not have exclusive trademark rights to the King Kong character. The courts ruled that trademark was not among the rights Cooper had sold to Universal, indicating that "Cooper plainly did not obtain any trademark rights in his judgment against RKO, since

8277-416: Was released. It was like opening up an old wound, I didn't watch the tape." Director Jun Fukuda selected Masaru Sato to score his films to give it a "different touch from Ishiro Honda's", noting Sato's music was lighter than Akira Ifukube's. Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka didn't agree with this decision but Fukuda won out in the end. The underwater sequences were filmed on an indoor soundstage where

8370-427: Was replaced with Kumi Mizuno at the last second. Although  Eiji Tsuburaya  is credited as the special effects director, actual directorial duties were handed over to Teisho Arikawa , who at this stage had been promoted to Tsuburaya's first assistant director. Tsuburaya still had the final say on effects sequences but served more of a supervisor role on the production. With a new special effects director in

8463-399: Was scaled to a consistent height of 25 feet (7.6 m) tall on both Skull Island and in New York. Jackson describes his central character: We assumed that Kong is the last surviving member of his species. He had a mother and a father and maybe brothers and sisters, but they're dead. He's the last of the huge gorillas that live on Skull Island ... when he goes ... there will be no more. He's

8556-410: Was supposed to fight a giant octopus in this film. However, Nakano likely confused this film with an early version of All Monsters Attack (1969). Both Nakano and Fukuda acted as though they were unaware the film ever started out starring King Kong. Fukuda said, "Godzilla was in the first draft of the script that I saw. I don't know what the earlier drafts were like." Fukuda further elaborated that making

8649-458: Was unable to compromise, Rankin-Bass dropped out of the project. Toho liked the script so much that they just decided to substitute Godzilla in place of Kong and made it as Godzilla, Ebirah, Mothra: Big Duel in the South Seas for their New Year's Blockbuster. Rankin-Bass and Toho would settle their differences the next year and would begin work on King Kong Escapes (1967), which was based on

#452547