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119-613: 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 was in the novelization of

238-545: A fictional dinosaur (animated by Ray Harryhausen ), which is released from its frozen, hibernating state by an atomic bomb test within the Arctic Circle . The American movie was released in Japan in 1954 under the title The Atomic Kaiju Appears , marking the first use of the genre's name in a film title. However, Godzilla , released in 1954, is commonly regarded as the first Japanese kaiju film. Tomoyuki Tanaka ,

357-479: 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, 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

476-527: A Flash Forward Award. From 2000 to 2005, SciFi.com published original science fiction short stories in a section called " Sci Fiction ", edited by Ellen Datlow , who won a 2005 Hugo Award for her work there. The stories themselves won a World Fantasy Award , the first Theodore Sturgeon Award for online fiction (for Lucius Shepard 's novella "Over Yonder"), and four of the Science Fiction Writers of America 's Nebula Awards , including

595-482: 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

714-586: 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,

833-503: 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

952-553: 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

1071-678: 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

1190-401: 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

1309-656: A form of puppetry interwoven between suitmation scenes for shots that were physically impossible for the suit actor to perform. From the 1998 release of Godzilla , American-produced kaiju films strayed from suitmation to computer-generated imagery (CGI). In Japan, CGI and stop-motion have been increasingly used for certain special sequences and monsters, but suitmation has been used for an overwhelming majority of kaiju films produced in Japan of all eras. Sci Fi Channel (United States) Syfy (a paraphrased neology of former name Sci-Fi Channel , later shortened to Sci Fi ; stylized as SYFY in all caps since 2017)

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1428-508: 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

1547-400: A human ( suit actor ) to wear and act in. This was combined with the use of miniature models and scaled-down city sets to create the illusion of a giant creature in a city. Due to the extreme stiffness of the latex or rubber suits, filming would often be done at double speed, so that when the film was shown, the monster was smoother and slower than in the original shot. Kaiju films also used

1666-523: A lasting impact and solidifying the figure of the giant monster as an essential component in genre cinematography. RKO Pictures later licensed the King Kong character to the Japanese studio Toho , resulting in the co-productions King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) and King Kong Escapes (1967), both directed by Ishirō Honda . Yoshirō Edamasa directed The Great Buddha Arrival in 1934. Although

1785-432: 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

1904-421: 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 . Kaiju Godzilla (1954) is often regarded as the first kaiju movie. When developing it, Honda and Tsuburaya drew inspiration from

2023-473: A metaphor for nuclear weapons , reflecting the fears of post-war Japan following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Lucky Dragon 5 incident. Other notable examples of kaiju characters include King Kong , Rodan , Mothra , King Ghidorah , and Gamera . The Japanese word kaijū originally referred to monsters and creatures from ancient Japanese legends; it earlier appeared in

2142-672: A mysterious giant animal starts destroying the city, until it is countered by a massive airstrike . It was based on a 1905 episode of McCay's comic strip series Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend . The 1925 film The Lost World (adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle 's 1912 novel of the same name ), featured many dinosaurs, including a brontosaurus that breaks loose in London and destroys Tower Bridge . The dinosaurs of The Lost World were animated by pioneering stop motion techniques by Willis H. O'Brien , who would some years later animate

2261-701: A neutral force of nature , but are more specifically preternatural creatures of divine power. They are not merely "big animals". Godzilla , for example, from its first appearance in the initial 1954 entry in the Godzilla franchise , has manifested all of these aspects. Other examples of kaiju include Rodan , Mothra , King Ghidorah , Anguirus , King Kong , Gamera , Gappa , Guilala , and Yonggary . There are also subcategories including Mecha Kaiju (Meka-Kaijū), featuring mechanical or cybernetic characters, including Moguera , Mechani-Kong , Mechagodzilla , and Gigan , which are an offshoot of kaiju . Likewise,

2380-514: A new splinter of the term, which quickly propagated through the popularity of superhero programs produced from the 1970s, forward. These kaijin possess rational thought and the power of speech, as do human beings. A successive kaijin menagerie, in diverse iterations, appeared over numerous series, most notably the Super Sentai programs premiering in 1975 (later carried over into Super Sentai ' s English iteration as Power Rangers in

2499-424: 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

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2618-520: A producer for Toho Studios in Tokyo, needed a film to release after his previous project was halted. Seeing how well the Hollywood giant monster movie genre films King Kong and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms had done in Japanese box offices, and himself a fan of these films, he set out to make a new movie based on them and created Godzilla . Tanaka aimed to combine Hollywood giant monster movies with

2737-420: 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

2856-443: A subsidiary of Vivendi SA (at the time known as Vivendi Universal). Vivendi's film and television production and cable television assets were then merged with General Electric 's NBC to form NBC Universal in 2004. In 2009 the network was rebranded as Syfy , and in 2010 Comcast purchased Syfy's parent company NBCUniversal . Comcast was one of the original cable TV operators to carry the channel. A high definition version of

2975-826: Is an American basic cable television channel , owned by the NBCUniversal Media Group division and business segment of Comcast 's NBCUniversal . Launched on September 24, 1992, the channel broadcasts programming relating to the science fiction , horror , and fantasy genres. As of November 2023 , Syfy is available to approximately 69,000,000 pay television households in the United States-down from its 2011 peak of 99,000,000 households. In 1989, in Boca Raton, Florida , communications attorneys and cable TV entrepreneurs Mitchell Rubenstein and his wife and business partner Laurie Silvers devised

3094-578: 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

3213-406: 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

3332-446: 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

3451-525: 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

3570-650: 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

3689-548: 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 the origin of King Kong: Kong: King of Skull Island and King Kong of Skull Island . In addition,

King Kong - Misplaced Pages Continue

3808-479: 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 a sacrifice (in the 1976 remake, her character

3927-676: 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

4046-424: 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

4165-502: 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), a film loosely based on Rankin/Bass ' The King Kong Show (1966–1969). In 1976, Dino De Laurentiis produced

4284-504: 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

4403-462: The 1990s). This created yet another splinter, as the kaijin of Super Sentai have since evolved to feature unique forms and attributes (e.g., gigantism ), existing somewhere between kaijin and kaiju . Daikaijū ( 大怪獣 ) literally translates as "giant kaiju " or "great kaiju ". This hyperbolic term was used to denote greatness of the subject kaiju , the prefix dai- emphasizing great size, power, and/or status. The first known appearance of

4522-579: 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 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,

4641-609: 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

4760-525: The Chinese Classic of Mountains and Seas . There are no traditional depictions of kaijū or kaijū -like creatures among the yōkai of Japanese folklore , although it is possible to find megafauna in their mythology (e.g., Japanese dragons ). After sakoku ended and Japan was opened to foreign relations in the mid-19th century, the term kaijū came to be used to express concepts from paleontology and legendary creatures from around

4879-511: 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

King Kong - Misplaced Pages Continue

4998-555: 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 the Apes . In 2016, DeVito ArtWorks, through its licensing program, licensed its King Kong property to RocketFizz for use in

5117-645: 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

5236-471: 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

5355-402: 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

5474-463: The News section of SyfyGames.com was rebranded to feature "news from G4 ". In 2010, Syfy Games signed a deal with the now defunct publisher THQ to co-produce De Blob 2 . Syfy Games would also co-produce Red Faction: Armageddon . Syfy Wire (formerly Sci-Fi Wire and Blastr ) is a website operated by Syfy featuring coverage of news in the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres. The site

5593-546: The URL ;– and the site's name – was changed to Syfy.com . As of 2010, Syfy.com began to contain webisode series including Riese: Kingdom Falling (as of October 26, 2010), The Mercury Men (as of July 25, 2011), and Nuclear Family (as of October 15, 2012). SyfyGames.com is an online games portal which offers free-to-play MMO and casual games. The site features predominantly sci-fi and fantasy games from third-party developers. In April 2015,

5712-538: The best known Seijin in the genre can be found in the Ultra Series , such as Alien Baltan from Ultraman , a race of cicada-like aliens who have gone on to become one of the franchise's most enduring and recurring characters other than the Ultras themselves. Toho has produced a variety of kaiju films over the years (many of which feature Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra), but other Japanese studios contributed to

5831-543: The channel has expanded into general-interest programming outside of the sci-fi genre to target a more mainstream audience. Such programming has included crime dramas, WCG Ultimate Gamer , and professional wrestling from WWE (including ECW , NXT , and SmackDown ). Syfy has been used for overflow sports and sports entertainment programming from its sister networks. It has participated in NBC Sports ' " Championship Sunday " effort to broadcast all matches on

5950-493: The channel launched a weekly two-hour programming block called "Ani-Monday", featuring English dubs of various anime series licensed by Manga Entertainment . During February 2008, the channel also aired anime on Tuesday nights in a second programming block. In July 2009, Syfy announced that they had renewed and expanded their licensing agreement with Manga Entertainment to add a two-hour block of horror anime (also called "Ani-Monday") to sister channel Chiller . Syfy's anime block

6069-504: The channel launched on October 3, 2007, on DirecTV . In 2013, Syfy was given the James Randi Educational Foundation 's Pigasus Award for what was described as questionable reality programming involving paranormal subjects. From 1992 to 1999, the network's first logo consisted of a planet with a ring, made to look like Saturn , with "SCI-FI CHANNEL" written on it. The network's second logo, which

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6188-526: The channels did not take on "Syfy" as any part of their names: channels in Japan and the Philippines rebranded to or were replaced by Universal Channel , while each of the channels in Poland, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia would become Sci Fi Universal. In Polish , "Syfy" does not suggest imagination or science fiction, but rather something gross, without value or even syphilis . In Australia, NBCUniversal

6307-451: The character of King Kong , both in its influential 1933 film and in the conception of a giant monster, establishing it as a pivotal precursor in the evolution of the genre. During its formative years, kaiju movies were generally neglected by Japanese critics, who regarded them as "juvenile gimmick", according to authors Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski. Kaiju are often somewhat metaphorical in nature; Godzilla , for example, serves as

6426-473: 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 the " Eighth Wonder of the World ". Kong escapes and climbs

6545-433: 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

6664-453: 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 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

6783-447: The collective subcategory Ultra-Kaiju (Urutora-Kaijū) is a separate strata of kaijū that specifically originates in the long-running Ultra Series franchise but can also be referred to simply by kaijū . As a noun , kaijū is an invariant , as both the singular and the plural expressions are identical. ( 怪人 lit. "Strange person") refers to distorted human beings or humanoid-like creatures. The origin of kaijin goes back to

6902-559: The concept for the Sci-Fi Channel , and signed up 8 of the top 10 cable TV operators as well as licensing exclusive rights to the British TV series Doctor Who (which shifted over from PBS to Sci-Fi Channel), Dark Shadows , and the cult series The Prisoner . In 1992, the channel was sold by Rubenstein and Silvers to USA Networks , then a joint venture between Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures . Rubenstein and Silvers became vice-chairs of USA Networks. The channel

7021-500: 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

7140-476: 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

7259-540: 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

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7378-512: 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

7497-484: The early 20th Century Japanese literature, starting with Edogawa Rampo 's 1936 novel, The Fiend with Twenty Faces . The story introduced Edogawa's master detective, Kogoro Akechi 's arch-nemesis, the eponymous "Fiend", a mysterious master of disguise, whose real face was unknown; the Moriarty to Akechi's Sherlock . Catching the public's imagination, many such literary and movie (and later television) villains took on

7616-439: 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

7735-520: The fantasy and sci-fi genres. Network head Chris McCumber explained that the network's goal was to "put fans at the center of everything we do", and explained a stacked, square-shaped form of the logo as being akin to a "badge". Syfy also planned to place a larger focus on its genre news division Syfy Wire, disclosing the possibility of extending the website to television as well. Syfy's original programming includes made-for-cable movies , miniseries , and television series . Under NBCUniversal ownership,

7854-475: 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 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

7973-465: 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

8092-455: 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

8211-508: The final matchday of the Premier League soccer season across NBCUniversal cable networks. In February 2022, WWE Raw and NXT aired on Syfy for two weeks due to USA Network's broadcasts of the 2022 Winter Olympics ; this was repeated during the 2024 Summer Olympics . During its early years, Syfy aired anime films and original video animations on early Saturday morning under the title of Saturday Anime . On June 11, 2007,

8330-626: The final season of Colony , as well as The Fandom Files , which features interviews with public figures about their pop culture obsessions. Guests have included Leland Chee and Mike Daniels of the Green Bay Packers . Sci Fi magazine was first published in June 1994, as Sci-Fi Entertainment , with the additional description "The Official Magazine of the Sci-Fi Channel" on the cover. The publisher from Volume 1, Issue 1,

8449-430: The first for original online fiction (for Linda Nagata 's novella "Goddesses"). On April 22, 2006, the site launched Sci Fi Pedia, a commercial wiki on topics including anime , comics , fandom , fantasy , games , horror , science fiction , toys , UFOs , genre-related art and audio , and the paranormal . In 2009, Sci Fi Pedia was shut down without explanation. As part of the channel's rebranding in 2009,

8568-443: 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

8687-482: The genre by producing films and shows of their own: Daiei Film ( Kadokawa Pictures ), Tsuburaya Productions , and Shochiku and Nikkatsu Studios. Eiji Tsuburaya , who was in charge of the special effects for Godzilla , developed a technique to animate the kaiju that became known colloquially as " suitmation ". Where Western monster movies often used stop motion to animate the monsters, Tsubaraya decided to attempt to create suits, called " creature suits ", for

8806-416: 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

8925-426: 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

9044-468: The giant gorilla-like creature breaking loose in New York City in the 1933 film King Kong . The enormous success of King Kong can be seen as the definitive breakthrough of monster movies . This influential achievement of King Kong paved the way for the emergence of the giant monster genre, serving as a blueprint for future kaiju productions. Its success reverberated in the film industry, leaving

9163-482: 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

9282-404: 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

9401-609: The imagination. Identification bumps depicted surreal situations such as a baby breathing fire, as well as a woman in a stately sitting room kissing a bug-eyed, big-eared animal. On March 16, 2009, NBCUniversal announced that Sci Fi was rebranding as "Syfy". Network officials also noted that, unlike the generic term "sci fi", which represents the entire genre , the term "Syfy" as a sensational spelling can be protected by trademark and therefore would be easier to market on other goods or services without fear of confusion with other companies' products. The only significant previous use of

9520-465: 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

9639-499: 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

9758-427: 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 a single bit of empathy for another living creature in his long life; it has been

9877-536: The mantle of kaijin . To be clear, kaijin is not an offshoot of kaiju . The first-ever kaijin that appeared on film was The Great Buddha Arrival a lost film, made in 1934. After the Pacific War , the term was modernized when it was adopted to describe the bizarre, genetically engineered and cybernetically enhanced evil humanoid spawn conceived for the Kamen Rider Series in 1971. This created

9996-522: 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, 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

10115-469: 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

10234-413: 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

10353-405: 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

10472-668: The name change. The parody news anchor Stephen Colbert made fun of the name change on The Colbert Report by giving the channel a "Tip of the Hat" for "spelling the name the way it's pronounced" and noting that "the tide is turning in my long fought battle against the insidious 'soft C ' ". The new name took effect on July 7, 2009. Syfy has since added reality shows and edged further from strictly science fiction, fantasy and horror programming. The rebranding efforts at NBC Universal's Sci Fi Channels worldwide resulted in most rebranding as "Syfy" or "Syfy Universal"; however, over one-third of

10591-700: The network was the film Star Wars . In 1994, Paramount was sold to Viacom , followed by Seagram 's purchase of a controlling stake in MCA (of which Universal was a subsidiary) from the Matsushita Electric Industrial Company the next year. In 1997, Viacom sold its stake in USA Networks to Universal, who spun off all its television assets to Barry Diller the next year into the new company Studios USA . Three years later, Diller would sell Studios USA back to Universal, by then

10710-528: 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 , the company behind

10829-566: The original film is now lost, stills of the film have survived, and it is one of the earliest examples of a kaiju film in Japanese cinematic history. The 1934 film presumably influenced the production of the Ultraman franchise. Ray Bradbury 's short story published in the Saturday Evening Post, June 23, 1951 " The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms " served as the basis for the film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), featuring

10948-531: 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

11067-412: 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

11186-450: 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

11305-549: The re-emerged Japanese fears of atomic weapons that arose from the Daigo Fukuryū Maru fishing boat incident; and so he put a team together and created the concept of a giant radioactive creature emerging from the depths of the ocean, a creature that would become the monster Godzilla. Godzilla initially had commercial success in Japan, inspiring other kaiju movies. The term kaijū translates literally as "strange beast". Kaiju can be antagonistic , protagonistic , or

11424-419: 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

11543-473: 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

11662-473: 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

11781-471: 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

11900-452: 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

12019-774: The term daikaiju in the 20th Century was in the publicity materials for the original 1954 release of Godzilla . Specifically, in the subtitle on the original movie poster, Suibaku Daikaiju Eiga ( 水爆大怪獣映画 ), lit. "H-Bomb Giant Monster Movie". Gamera, the Giant Monster , the first film of the Gamera franchise in 1965, also utilized the term where the Japanese title of the film is Daikaijū Gamera ( 大怪獣ガメラ ). Seijin ( 星人 lit. "star people"), appears within Japanese words for extraterrestrial aliens, such as Kaseijin ( 火星人 ), which means " Martian ". Aliens can also be called uchūjin ( 宇宙人 ) which means "spacemen". Among

12138-528: The term "Syfy" in relation to science fiction was by the website SyFy Portal, which became Airlock Alpha after selling the brand to an unnamed company in February 2009. It rebranded just after Starz 's logo, even though Syfy came before Starz by Lionsgate . The name change was greeted with initial negativity, with people deliberately mispronouncing "Syfy" as / ˈ s ɪ f i / SIF -ee or / ˈ s iː f i / SEE -fee to make fun of

12257-554: The time the channel finally launched on September 24, 1992. Rubenstein recalled: "The first thing that was on the screen was 'Dedicated to the memories of Isaac Asimov and Gene Roddenberry'." Leonard Nimoy was master of ceremonies at the channel's launch party, held at the Hayden Planetarium in Manhattan . Asimov's widow Janet and Roddenberry's widow Majel Barrett were both in attendance. The first program shown on

12376-541: The world. For example, the extinct Ceratosaurus -like cryptid featured in The Monster of "Partridge Creek" (1908) by French writer Georges Dupuy was referred to as kaijū . It is worthy to note that in the Meiji era , Jules Verne ’s works were introduced to the Japanese public, achieving great success around 1890. Genre elements were present at the end of Winsor McCay 's 1921 animated short The Pet in which

12495-413: 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

12614-517: Was Mark Hintz, with Carl A. Gnam Jr. as editorial director and Ted Klein as editor. Scott Edelman took over as editor with the December 1996 issue, holding that position until leaving after the June 2000 issue, by which point the magazine's name had already been shortened to Sci Fi , in keeping with the channel's name change to Sci Fi in 1999; Scott Edelman returned to be editor of the channel's online magazine, Science Fiction Weekly , moving back to editor of Sci Fi in February 2002. The magazine

12733-435: 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

12852-400: 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

12971-527: 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

13090-470: Was a partner in SF alongside Foxtel , CBS Studios International and Sony Pictures Television ; after the channel shut down in 2013, NBCUniversal launched a local version of Syfy in 2014. On May 11, 2017, in honor of the network's upcoming 25th anniversary, Syfy unveiled a major rebranding that took effect on-air June 19. The new branding was intended to re-position the channel back towards targeting fans of

13209-412: Was later moved to Thursday nights, starting March 14, 2011, where it remained until all anime programming was dropped on June 9, 2011. On April 20, 2019, Syfy launched a new late night adult animation block called TZGZ which aired until March 13, 2021. Sci Fi Pictures original films are independently-made B-movies with production budgets of $ 1 million to $ 2 million each. The initiative

13328-441: 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

13447-785: Was published by Sovereign Media Co, based in Herndon, Virginia . As of October 2023, the magazine is still described at the Sovereign Media website, but the link to the publication is no longer active there, and no link is available at the Syfy.com site; the last functioning archived link from the Syfy.com page is for the issue available in October 2014. Science Fiction Weekly was an online magazine started on August 15, 1995, and edited by Craig Engler and Brooks Peck. In April 1996, it began appearing exclusively on "The Dominion" as part of

13566-511: 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

13685-464: Was rebranded in 2010 as Blastr, with the addition of feature articles, guest columnists (such as Phil Plait ), popular science news and coverage, and video content. In December 2016, Blastr rebranded as Syfy Wire; editor-in-chief Adam Swiderski stated that this change was to closer associate the website with the Syfy television channel. As of March 2018, Syfy Wire releases five regular podcasts, including two recap series following The Expanse and

13804-461: 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 a very lonely creature, absolutely solitary. It must be one of

13923-529: Was seen as a natural fit with classic films and television series that both studios had in their vaults, including Universal's Dracula , Frankenstein , and the Rod Serling TV series Night Gallery , along with Paramount's Star Trek television series. Star Trek ' s creator Gene Roddenberry and author Isaac Asimov were recruited by Rubenstein and Silvers to serve on the initial advisory board, but both Roddenberry and Asimov had died by

14042-470: Was spearheaded by Thomas Vitale in 2001, and was managed by Vitale, Chris Regina, and Ray Cannella, with the later additions of Karen O'Hara and Macy Lao. Syfy is also one of the sponsors for the Coalition for Freedom of Information. Syfy's website launched in 1995, under the name The Dominion (though using scifi.com in its URL); it changed to SciFi.com in 2000. The site has won a Webby Award and

14161-487: Was used from 1999 to 2002, dropped the hyphen and the word "CHANNEL" from the name. The network's third and final "ringed planet" logo ran from 2002 to 2009, and was designed by Lambie-Nairn . The logo made its debut on December 2, 2002, with the launch of the Steven Spielberg miniseries Taken . The network also launched a new image campaign with the tagline "If", which expresses the limitless possibilities of

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