King Kongseems as much a part of the fabric of Hollywood as the Walk of Fame or studio lots.
He’s returning to cinemas (and our living rooms) on March 31 withGodzilla vs. Kong.
But though there have been many iterations of Kong, none can ape the impact of the original.
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They needed something to help them because most of their movies up to that point had not been successful.
Even the ones that had been successful had not been big hits, certainly not blockbusters."
“That it was going to be a particularly spectacular movie.
The result of that extra time and money?
Box office receipts that jolted RKO off life support.
“People had never seen anything that approached it in terms of cinematic spectacle,” Jewell says.
“King Kongwas almost a new genre unto itself.”
Beyond the spectacle, the throw in of adventureKing Kongoffered connected with contemporary interests in scientific discovery.
“It holds up as one of the great cinematic adventures of all time.
That to me is why [Hollywood] keeps coming back to it over and over again.
The resurgence of King Kong in this moment seems almost poetic.
“It’s no picnic today, that’s for sure,” he says.
But the whole economic equation of the United States had been turned on its head in 1933.
It was the absolute bottom of the Depression, with 25 to 30 percent unemployment.
So I think it was much worse then.”
And one movie alone won’t change the game for streaming versus theatrical releases.
