It's official -- Peter Jackson's next film: King Kong

more from Jackson

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainm...ection=general

So the truth is out. Steve isn't some film nut from London, he really is a Hollywood film exec trolling in the HTF for ideas and feedback. How else can we explain that spot-on rendition of a typical exec story pitch?

Seth my story pitch would have guaranteed a few Razzie noms at the very least.
And would have made me so proud [wipes tear].

Seems to me that many of you (not all) talk on and on about how much you despise remakes of classic films or remakes in general.

I'm sure there are some people that think that the 30's King Kong would make a good remake - but I suspect that most would be dead against it .... except ....

Now we hear that Peter Jackson is going to do a remake and we get comments like "I'd love to see his interpretation."

Maybe he'll choose to do a smaller piece next after this (like remaking Psycho).

Rich,

I think you make a very good point.

BUT I think this situation is different for a few reasons:

1. Most remakes are made out of fiscal corner-cuttering, not a particular love for an old film. We've all read articles where Director X was told by Studio Y: "These properties belong to us; pick which one you'll direct." Shit, if Universal goes through with a Creature of the Black Lagoon remake, it doesn't really HAVE to be any good. (Sure it could...) They save money by starting work on an already-existing project; the title already has massive name recognition; such a name often brings in big-name acting talent, etc., etc.

2. Most of the time when this happens the result seems limp and lazy and pointless. (Examples? Love Affair, The Truth About Charlie, Psycho, A Perfect Murder, and this list could go on for days). BUT once in a while we're given something like Solaris or Insomnia or The Ring (or even Dirty Rotten Scoundrels!!). Remake schmemake; those are good movies on their own.

3. Most importantly: As movie fans, we trust Peter Jackson. Sure we also trusted Spielberg when he wanted to remake Peter Pan, but something tells me that Jackson's skipping with glee at the opportunity to remake the greatest monster movie of all time. Do you get the impression that Harold Ramis was dancing with glee when he got to remake Bedazzled? To me that's just product. With someone like Jackson, I doubt it will ever be 'just product'.

By and large, I stick by my 'Remakes Suck' motto. Obviously there are always exception to that rule.

Gah! How could I forget Rollerball?

Scott,

In essence, what you seem to be saying is: "it depends." I have no problem with that and I think that you state some very good examples.

To me, spending energy on protesting remakes is like begging the wind not to blow. Remakes go back almost to the beginning of cinema. Look at how many silent films were remade when talking pictures came out.

But let's discuss Psycho (1998) for a minute.

A lazy effort? No. Virtually a shot by shot remake of the original. To condemn the (1998) effort as lazy would seem to condemn Hitchcock's own effort.

A limp result? A case could be made that the acting (cast) was superior to the original acting.

Lack of originality? Sure. By definition. However, isn't that what Jackson will be doing with the monkey?

Pointless? Perhaps. But consider that Van Sant lobbied hard to do Psycho and was able to do it only due to his marketability after Good Will Hunting. Now, Jackson (previously turned down) gets to do King Kong after his big success.

I personally don't care about remakes one way or the other. One could make a very good case that as time goes by the possiblity of truly original films become less and less. Therefore, what difference does it make how ideas are rehashed?

I do think Van Sant's strategy was severely flawed with the shot by shot approach.

I also trust that Jackson will produce an interesting film.

But I am tired with all the kneejerk crying about remakes. As you mentioned, there are plenty of remakes that were better than the originals. If it is good enough for Hitchcock (who remade his own film for pete's sake) and Fritz Lang etc. then the films should be considered on their own merit.

here is more from PJ once again

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,...2a2202,00.html

The lead female, originally played by Fay Wray in 1933, would need to have a good set of pipes, he said, given her part requires a lot of screaming.

who qualifies for this one then ?

The big, big problem with a King Kong remake is that everyone knows how its going to end, unless Peter Jackson gives the classic 'beauty killed the beast' ending a radical re-imagining (hate that word), but what else can he do? The ending has to be powerful, sad, symbolic, metaphoric etc etc. There can't be a happy ending or a surprise ending. There is no 'and Kong and Ann lived happily ever after on Skull Island' ending, normal people won't accept that.
So here is my alternate ending... Kong climbs the Empire State Building with Ann held gingerly between his teeth, he gets to the top and the planes start attacking him, Kong in his fury forgets Ann is in his mouth and... eats her... after destroying the planes he looks for Ann, realising he must have ate her, lets out a howl of grief and leaps to his death... [sniff].

To bad Fran Walsh isn't an actor - considering the screams she made for the Nazgul I'd say she would be more than up to it...

> The ending has to be powerful

Kong turns into a handsome prince. The clock, candlestick, & teapot turn into people.

Dave Kujan runs outside of the police station and looks up while a voice over announces, "And just like that...he's Kong."

Yes, I'm strongly in the camp that remakes are 100% fine.

If/when I criticize them is when it sounds much more like an executive "cash in" concept instead of a true artistic goal.

I also am not inherently anti-new edits/alternate versions ala Star Wars, ET, or Apoc Now: Redux, because I can appreciate an artist's interest in further exploring some published or "finished" work. Artists often become fascinated with a particular piece they have done.

The #1 key in all these cases is that the remake or update does NOT ELIMINATE the original from availability to audiences (ie, Lucas). And for updates the "cash in" problem still looms over these projects. I happen to think that Coppola had sincere interests with Redux, and he did in fact make the film a new version with an altered tone throughout much of it, almost totally for the worse IMO, but at least he was giving us some different vision of it without eliminating the original.

Same with Almost Famous: Untitled or FOTR:EE.


Back to straight remakes, Ben-Hur 59 is one of my favorite films. I think Vanilla Sky was an equal to Open Your Eyes, but was able to add other influences like Jules and Jim more overtly (car crash style for one, poster too of course). The Ring actually improved Ringu quite a bit IMO. Fistful of Dollars is an equal for Yojimbo to me as well. And Insomnia was yet another success.


I think we are much more forgiving of foreign artists that remake American films (or other foreign films) than we are of American's remaking foreign films or American classics. However, I don't think American efforts should be considered inherently wrong just because someone has some anti-Hollywood chip on the shoulder.


Consider this, the classic early German Expressionist film "The Student of Prague" (starring Paul Wegener - director of The Golem, another German classic) was remade less than 15 years later by another German filmmaker, Henrik Galeen (who co-wrote and co-directed Der Golem with Wegener). And Nosferatu was then "remade" as the American classic sound film "Dracula" (though obviously this refers to remaking a literary source which is often more easily forgiven) and most people seem comfortable with picturing Bela Lugosi as THE Dracula.

Almost all film theorists and critics recognize the Expressionsist and UFA Studios era of German film to be one of the best and most artistic eras, yet even they were remaking their own films.

Even Hitchcock did it.


So Kong will be good or bad depending mostly on what PJ, Walsh, Boyens, and the rest of the team decide to do with it. Right now their track record of interpreting works is pretty good.



Rich, I thought the remake acting in Psycho was not half as strong as the original, which was one of many things that hurt the film. I did not see the "shot for shot" idea as a cash-in at all, it was too much of an experimental concept to be a cash-in (certainly the studio had to consider such an idea to be a little bit risky in how it would be viewed). I did find the result to be quite lacking, but plenty of people with good intentions fail at their artistic efforts too.

...the US air strike is called off, after the mayor realises they are doing more damage to the city than the big ape, meanwhile a bored Kong is sitting in Central Park picking his toes, while Ann is touching up her make-up. A truck full of bananas arrives at the scene, a suspicious Kong is about to smash the truck but Ann pleads with him to stop acting like a big ape, Kong scoffs the bananas and gets a bit frisky with Ann, nearly flattening her with his finger, soon the area is full of people, taking photos of Kong picking his nose, but a yawning Kong soon clears the area after breaking wind.
The End.

Seth,

I own Open Your Eyes, Ringu, and Insomnia (2002) but haven't seen them yet. I have seen their counterparts.

Yojimbo is an interesting film. Certainly, Kurosawa was significantly influenced by American Westerns when he did the film. To me that is a successful film. One that builds new ideas or interprets old ideas that interest a director.

I would agree that Fistful of Dollars is a fine remake. I find it an interesting irony that a Spaghetti Western built on a Japanese film that built on American Westerns. One could also make a very strong argument that how 'the Man with no name' got between the two factions was done in a much cleaner way than Kurosawa handled it.

The question then becomes is Django a superior remake (or at least a worthy remake) of both of them?

And the main female lead, who Kong captures, can be a fledgling news reporter and the ex-girlfriend of the Simian Specialist the gov't calls in to help battle Kong. Also this Simian Specialist gets in a situation where the giant ape trips and falls and his head and nose fall just in front of our hero. Later, when talking to someone about seeing him they ask, how close did you get, and he replies, "pretty close". Oh, and of course they have to have a news cameraman who lives for danger and goes for all the really tought shots.

To PJ I can only say, "Good luck trying to improve on King Homer."

Evan

So, not only is King Kong PJ's next film, it is turning into a near "sequel" of LOTR (in terms of behind the scenes talent).

PJ as director/writer
FW as producer/co-writer (I assume)
Phillipa as co-writer
WETA for SFX

and now

Howard Shore as composer (TORN has this news today).

I think it is also safe to assume many of the same crew (non-WETA people) will also return. NZ isn't that big of a place.

I don't know if "sequel" is really the right word. Lots of successful filmmakers use the same team on a regular basis. Look at Steven Spielberg: Janusz Kaminski (DoP), John Williams (Composer), Michael Kahn (editor), Walter Parkes (producer), ILM (effects). If you find a team that works well, and you can work well with, why change?


Peter Jackson essentially IS the film industry in NZ, isn't he? :wink:

great news indeed as I think Shore's soundtracks are awesome

Honestly, whatever Peter Jackson does from now on will not be a "small" film. It may be weird, but definately not small. He is probably the hottest director in Hollywood right now (save for Spielberg) and let's face it, he has the option to do anything he wants. So, given your childhood dream is to remake this movie, why not strike while the iron is hot? I am sure that this movie will be very much with his previous ones (probably with lots of nasty spiders and the like), so it should be very interesting to see what is done. But, as was said earlier, if he ever has time to do the Hobbitt...

http://www.comingsoon.net/news.php?id=1054

Rings Trio Get Big Payday for King Kong!

Please let him find time to do The Hobbit!!!

But in the meantime, I like the idea of PJ doing King Kong. After showing his ability to take one of my favorite books to the big screen and keep the spirit of it so close, I have a lot of faith in him right now.

I'll chime in and say I'm not a fan of remakes. I hunger for new art, not replications of previous art. Significant reinterpretation is fine, but a strait remake seems pretty pointless to me.

In the case of Kong, I had 2 reactions. First, I thought, yeah, Jackson could make a fantastic Kong. Then I thought, wait, a faithful remake in a 30s setting? Kong is a lousy project for that because its themes are so dated. It's basically a film focused on sexual innuendo between an ape and a woman (with interracial overtones mixed in, doubly titillating) that made sense in the ultra-repressed US in the early 30s but frankly will be laughable today. And, if you gut the sexual innuendo, then it's not really a remake as far as I can see.

Also, the concept of pumped up white men landing on an island full of natives and ungodly rare dinosaurs and proceeding to trample everyone and blast everything won't fly today. So, what's a PC version of King Kong going to look like? Exactly - potentially very silly.

OTOH, if Jackson does a major reinterpretation, it will just be Kong in name only, which would be fine. Maybe Kong could be a giant, sexually deprived Hobbit who takes a fancy to some sexy anthropologist chick.

Considering the reception of Godzilla , Planet of the Apes and The Hulk is this movie such a wise step?

I mean, we all say we love Peter Jackson, but how many of us are going to lash out over his putting his stamp on the property.

If he makes a good movie, no one will lash out at him.

If he makes a lousy movie, he deserves the lashing. The makers of Godzilla, PotA (remake) and The Hulk deserve what they got, because they were bad films.

People are going to lash out, because they ahve preconceptions of the character.

That's not why people lashed out at Godzilla and PotA. Some were mad for that reason about The Hulk...but in general it was still because too many people felt it was a talking-heads movie. I don't think preconceptions will be that big of a problem w/King Kong.

You know I've heard for years the conjecture that Kong was a sexual & racial allegory but it really hasn't ever been proved......you could postulate that Clockwork Orange was really a statement about government involvement in pharmaceutical companies but that doesn't make it so.

Please, lets not discuss GINO 98 (Godzilla In Name Only). 5 years later and I am still angry what those two A-holes did with it. oops ..sorry angry Godzilla fan venting frustration .