Kong: Skull Island and possibility of King Kong vs. Godzilla remake · 12:42am Sep 17th, 2015
The gorilla warfare isn't even here yet and everyone's already going ape.....
badum-pish
Okay puns aside I was asked by a few people to talk about my thoughts on the upcoming King Kong movies and do I think we're being set up for a crossover between the first rate great ape and the big gray goliath, Godzilla.
First let's briefly cover the movie 'Kong: Skull Island' and I say briefly because we don't know much about it yet. I've heard seemingly conflicting reports that the movie is set in the 1970s, but is also a prequel. By saying it's a prequel, we can best infer that the events of Kong's capture and subsequent rampage through New York City occurred in the 1930s like it did in the original movie and the 2005 remake by Peter Jackson. So how can a prequel be set 40 years later? Well, it might come back to a little known book adapted into a graphic novel by Dark Horse Comics called 'Kong: King of Skull Island'
KKoSI is both a sequel and a prequel to the original 1933 film, with half the story being set in the 1950s with the son of Carl Denham (the promoter who captured and brought Kong to NYC) setting out to find Skull Island when he believes his missing father returned there with Kong's body; and the other half of the story taking place in the last 1800s with several islander characters meeting the young ape who would be king. It shows both life on the island before the film, gives us information as to what great civilization once dwelt there, and show's Kong's rise after he is orphaned by a mutant dinosaur named 'Gaw', whom the islanders originally sacrificed too.
And the crux of it all? It was stated that KKoSI was going to get a movie adaptation at some point. If the 2005 remake of Kong had its roots all the way back in 1976, who's to say the novel's adaptation didn't just linger in development cold storage for awhile as well?
One way or another, if 'Kong: Skull Island' is framed in a similar fashion where it jumps back and forth, or is even a direct adaptation; I could see it working as I did enjoy the novel.
Noooow onto the main event....
Do I think this is all set up to a shared universe and will climax in 'King Kong vs. Godzilla' being reborn?...... To risk sounding like a cheap scape? Maybe. Not definitely yes, but not definitely no. More and more cards are pointing in the direction of 'yes' as time goes on, but we can't be 100% for sure. I can guarantee that on some level on the higher ups, it has been discussed. Someone has brought it up and maybe even pitched the idea. Whether said idea flew a bit or got shot down, I have no clue. The idea to bring these two icons together again for the first time since the 1960s original film has happened. Toho came very close to doing it in 1990 for their Heisei Godzilla series, but had to back out when Universal, the current owners of Kong's character rights, demanded a ludicrous amount for it. Now, ironically enough whereas before we had a Japanese company wanting to use an American monster in a crossover, we got an American pair of companies to use a Japanese monster for a crossover. However I would say things are looking up a bit on that front because Toho has so far been very eager to let Legendary use their stuff considering how quick they were to let them use Rodan, Mothra, King Ghidorah, and possibly more for the Godzilla sequels. And recently Universal has gotten a lot more lax in letting others use the big ape. I would say that if this crossover movie ever occurred, this named half decade is our best bet.
Now, with stuff going to start coming up soon, what could be some clues as to yes or no regarding if the fight happens.
1. The Kaiju roster in Godzilla 2.
Currently we know Rodan, Mothra, and Ghidorah are going to show up somewhere across the next two Legendary Pictures Godzilla movies. We have been promised by the G2 crew that there will be much more monster action in the next movie. So if all three of those kaiju are alongside the Big G in 'Godzilla 2', than that could be a good indicator that the stage is being cleared for someone, possibly the greatest of the great apes, in the third movie.
2. Kong's size in 'Kong: Skull Island'.
As of now the only footage of this movie was a teaser at Comic-Con in 2014, of which I have no seen. And from what I've heard, there wasn't a good reference on how to scale Kong's size. As of now we do not know how large this incarnation of King Kong is. King Kong's size has gone up and down over the years, but he typically averages out at about 35 feet, or a hair over 10 meters, standing straight up. Big, but actually within the realm of real mammalian megafauna and definitely a kitten compared to the 108 meter tall Legendary Picture's Godzilla. A 35 foot or even a 90 foot Kong wouldn't put up any fight against Legendary Picture's Godzilla. But, a 90+ meter tall just might do the trick, and if they make Kong that big or supply a means to make him that large, that could work. So if we finally see King Kong in Skull Island and he is much, much larger than 35 feet, more on the other of 300+ feet; there's your answer. Because the only reason he'd be way over his original size and have any business being that huge, is if he was being set up to fight something his size or slightly larger.
3. Any references between the two movies prior.
If any direct references to the events of the two franchises, be it Godzilla 2 mentioning a giant ape in 1933 or Skull island showing any of the pre-1950s events of Godzilla; that is near proof positive for an eventual crossover. Because direct references showing the events occurred in the same universe is a very good indicator of a shared universe in which icons will eventually meet.
If they do a remake they need to fix it so the ending let's you know it was pretty much a draw and let's face it like death battle everyone's gonna be arguing over who really won.
No disrespect to K.K after all the king in my name was King Kong inspired.
Also if the remake is made are they gonna let Kong keep his lightning powers? Be pretty funny considering it was originally Frankenstein who was supposed to face Godzilla in that movie.
Will this have any effect on The Bridge? Cause that would be kinda awesome.
I don't see them doing a remake of king kong vs godzilla. The flaw of that is because Godzilla his even bigger than kong himself. So Godzilla would basically kill kong by one step of his foot. Therefore, I think it would be kinda stupid of a remake. Unless the humans create some sort of machine that can enhance kong's size, then that would make sense (Just a theory).
Here is a good question!
Well we see King Kong in The Bridge story? Like in the sequel.
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See point 2 on my list at the end.
I have 2 Theory regarding the size difference:
1) Kong could be captured and Mutated making him bigger, adds to the possible plot and allows for more liberty regarding Kong´s appearence.
2) it is possible that, during their attempts to stop Big G, some radiation might have mutated Skull Island, essentialy making it the new Moster Island, that will only depend of the time gap between the "original" Kong and Godzilla´s appearences.
3398231 Fair 'nough.
As much hype as this story is getting, I do not think we'll be seeing the rematch to the fight of the century. And I take no pleasure in saying that.
Explained in this article on IGN (ascribe however much truth to it as you will) The studio higher-ups are angling for an eventual crossover. Despite being in the public domain, should this happen, it would cement Kong's part in the Godzilla universe beyond just a novel one-off.
As much as I would love to see these two tear at each-other again (Indeed I just got finished writing about the '62 movie for my own project) I still feel that this crossover is not going to happen. If for no other reason, than the refusal to get my hopes up. I regard the '62 film as my personal favorite in the series, and the final climactic fight as the best fight scene in any Godzilla movie. So trying to comprehend a 20-something version of such a thing, leaves me with images of the most epic, blockbuster fight ever created for the silver screen.
But there's still just too many parties involved for my liking, too many chefs in the kitchen. This isn't like the MCU, where Marvel/Disney already own all the properties in-house, and don't have to go through squads of lawyers and boxes of paperwork to get a character they want featured. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think legal issues may hold the pillow over this concepts face.
I will say however, that if I see agents of, or a reference to MONARCH in Skull Island, I don't know what will happen, but I'll probably leave the theater in a fugue state, wondering where my life can possibly go from there.
Once upon a time, a movie came out that inspired many who would one day become film makers themselves. It was titled "King Kong". At the time, RKO (the studio that made the movie) kept the effects an in-house secret, preventing any one else from making a comparable movie. Many who saw the movie began to dream up ways to make movies like that on their own.
About twenty years later, "King Kong" was re-released, creating a new generation of fans of Giant Monster movies. This time, the former kids who spent twenty years dreaming up how to make their own Giant Monster movies were on hand and ready to satisfy the market for these movies. Amongst the best (if not the absolute best, and certainly the most successful) of these new Giant Monster movies was, of course, "Godzilla".
Now, an important thing that one can conclude from this, as is supported by other events leading into the next decade, is that those involved in making "Godzilla" were huge "King Kong" fanboys. Toho was willing to spend massive amounts to rent the rights to Kong, and was allowed to make two movies with him as a result.
Where am I going with this, you may ask? The original "King Kong" is a classic cinematic masterpiece, but it's rather dated now, and the two remakes were lackluster in comparison. In the current generation there simply are not that many rabid fans of the character like there were in the 1950's. By comparison, Godzilla has a huge fan base now instead. So, the most important question as to whether Kong and Godzilla will ever have a re-match is this: How much are the current owners of Kong willing to either pay to be able to use Godzilla, or give up to allow Kong to be used by someone else in a Godzilla movie. Also, and this is a big one, if they do try to rent Godzilla, do they have the ability to due justice to the character. Let's face it, outside of Legendary Pictures, American film studios have a history of really screwing up Daikaiju movies.
Now, since Legendary has the rights to make Godzilla movies in the U.S. at this time, it's possible that, if the price isn't too high, that they could acquire Kong for a movie. They would, of course, have to adjust the characters to be in scale with each other, as well as to come up with a way of bringing them into conflict, but that's for the scriptwriters to figure out.
I suspect the likelihood of this actually happening is rather low, but time will tell.