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King Kong (2005 film)

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                          King Kong
               Theatrical Poster For King Kong
     Directed by   Peter Jackson
     Produced by   Jan Blenkin
                   Carolynne Cunningham
                   Fran Walsh
                   Peter Jackson
     Written by    Story:
                   Merian C. Cooper
                   Edgar Wallace
                   Screenplay:
                   Peter Jackson
                   Fran Walsh
                   Philippa Boyens
      Starring     Naomi Watts
                   Jack Black
                   Adrien Brody
                   Thomas Kretschmann
                   Colin Hanks
                   Jamie Bell
                   Andy Serkis
      Music by     James Newton Howard
   Cinematography  Andrew Lesnie
     Editing by    Jamie Selkirk
   Distributed by  USA Theatrical and Worldwide DVD / Video
                   Universal Pictures
                   Non-USA Theatrical
                   United International Pictures
   Release date(s) December 14, 2005
    Running time   Theatrical:
                   187 min.
                   Extended Edition:
                   192 min.
      Language     English
       Budget      $207,000,000
                   All Movie Guide profile
                        IMDb profile

   King Kong is the three-time 2006 Academy Award-winning remake of the
   original 1933 King Kong film about a fictional giant ape called Kong.
   It was directed by Peter Jackson, produced by Jackson and Fran Walsh,
   written by Jackson, Walsh and Philippa Boyens, and its cast included
   Naomi Watts in the role of Ann Darrow, Jack Black as Carl Denham,
   Adrien Brody as Jack Driscoll and through performance capture Andy
   Serkis as Kong.

   In 1933, Great Depression-era New York City, actress Ann Darrow has
   just lost her job at the local theatre and is faced with dancing at the
   local burlesque show to survive. Meanwhile, film director Carl Denham
   faces the cancellation of his latest movie because of his unorthodox
   methods and approach to filmmaking. After Carl recruits Ann to replace
   his leading lady, who joins the film because of the presence of her
   favorite writer Jack Driscoll, they set sail to evade the police and
   journey to a remote Indian Ocean island known as Skull Island to find
   the legendary creature known as Kong.

   The film's budget climbed from an initial $150 million US to a
   record-breaking $207 million. With a huge marketing campaign and many
   commercial tie-ins, the December 14, 2005 release was all-encompassing
   for the movie market, and was seriously challenged only by its other
   major competitor, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the
   Wardrobe. The film made a modest opening of $50.1 million, and
   significantly underperformed expectations at the box office.
   Nonetheless, Kong turned out to be very profitable as ticket and DVD
   sales combined, the film earned well over $600 million, becoming the
   fourth-highest grossing movie in Universal Pictures history.

   It recieved positive reviews, which some considering it one of the
   all-round best movies of 2005, though it has been criticized for its
   excessive length at three hours and eight minutes. It won Academy
   Awards for visual effects, sound mixing, and sound editing.

Plot

   Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

   Carl Denham is a documentary filmmaker whose penchant for "safari
   films" does not go over well with his studio bosses who prefer to see
   him turn in a romance film for a change. When he discovers that they
   would rather sell his films off as stock footage than fund his latest
   movie, Denham steals the film and quickly organizes to leave for his
   next shoot immediately. Still in need of a leading lady, along the way
   he meets Ann Darrow, an unemployed vaudeville actress whose theatre was
   recently closed down due to lack of money. He convinces Ann to join him
   in his latest movie endeavour and boards a tramp steamer with her.

   Jack Driscoll — a hapless playwright who has written part of the
   screenplay - is tricked by Denham into joining the journey in order to
   finish the story. The ship leaves just in time for Denham to escape the
   police, who have been sent by Denham's angry studio bosses, and sets
   off on a voyage to what Ann and Jack believe to be Singapore. Along the
   way, Denham reveals they're actually heading for Skull Island, a place
   unknown to the outside world that Denham believes will make for some
   spectacular footage for his production. Although Captain Englehorn and
   the first mate, Ben Hayes, voice concerns and skepticism about their
   destination, they set out to find the island anyway. Meanwhile Ann, a
   fan of Jack's plays, begins to fall in love with the playwright.
   Eventually, Jack tells her that he's writing a stage comedy for her,
   and ends up kissing her.

   News that Denham is wanted for arrest puts an end to the search for the
   island, but the ship then stumbles into the island's location and
   becomes trapped on a big rock. As the steamer's crew try to fix the
   ship, Denham, Ann, Jack and the film crew go ashore, where they are
   ambushed by a mob of angry natives. Denham's sound-recordist Mike and
   one other crewman are killed, but Denham, Jack and the rest of the
   landing party are rescued by Captain Englehorn and his crew. They
   return to the ship and make preparations to leave, but a native slips
   on board and captures Ann, killing a crewman in the process. Ann is
   soon held captive, tied up, and strapped to the superior posts of a
   thin wooden drawbridge that juts across to the other side of a massive
   wall which separates the natives from the rest of the island. The
   ship's crew arm themselves and attempt a rescue mission, but are too
   late as Carl watches Ann get taken away by a giant ape.

   The crew discover that the ape, named "Kong" by the natives, lives in a
   massive jungle where prehistoric creatures have been protected and
   hidden for millions of years. After some discussion, the captain allows
   Denham and Jack to take 15 armed crewman led by Hayes to go look for
   her. Denham attempts to take advantage of the search, and brings along
   all his camera gear, remaining film crew, and even the actor. As they
   trek through the jungle, the group comes across a Ceratopsian dinosaur.
   Panicking, they start firing at it and it rampages, possibly killing
   four crewmen. They are able to kill it with a few shots from a Tommy
   gun.

   As they continue through the jungle, the group stops to rest. Carl,
   Bruce and the camera assistant, Herb go to film some scenes and they
   run into a pack of Brontosaurus dinosaurs. A pack of Venatosaurus
   causes the Brontosaurus to start running, and the crew is caught in the
   middle of the rampage. Four crewmen and Herb are killed in the rampage.
   Meanwhile, in an attempt to keep Kong from possibly killing her, Ann
   desperately resorts to trying to entertain Kong by dancing and doing
   tricks, which actually succeeds in amusing Kong. But when Ann stops and
   defies him, Kong becomes angry and throws a tantrum, but fails to
   intimidate her. Kong then strangely leaves, so Ann takes the
   opportunity to escape.

   Meanwhile, the film crew has constructed two log rafts to cross a
   river. While on the river, large scorpion type animals crawl onto the
   rafts. The crew easily fends them off, but a gigantic serpent monster
   attacks them. When it corners Preston, who has Carl's camera, and Jack
   in the water, Carl grabs a gun and stops the monster from killing them.
   They then manage to swim back to shore, with three crewmen killed.

   Later, as they are crossing a log bridge, Hayes goes into a cave to
   check if it's clear and is killed by Kong in a surprise attack. Kong
   then drops the log (with everyone on it) into the chasm, with the fall
   killing three men, including Lumpy the cook's friend Choy. When they
   wake up in the hole, the survivors find themselves trapped in a chasm
   with giant invertebrates, including bloodworm-like Carnictis (Vile
   Meat-Weasel), weta-like Weta-Rexes, Arachno-Claws (that look like a
   cross between a spider and a scorpion) and other large insects. Carl,
   enraged by the destruction of his camera, grabs a wooden stick and
   fights off the bugs. Lumpy, trying to save the body of Choy from
   becoming worm food, dies protecting it from the Carnictis bugs. Jimmy
   is able to save Jack by picking off the bugs on him with the only
   remaining gun. In all, three men are killed, and only Carl, Jack and
   Jimmy remain. The survivors are rescued by Captain Englehorn with
   another rescue party lead by Bruce Baxter. Alone, Jack continues his
   determined search for Ann, whilst Denham decides to capture Kong and
   bring him back to New York City.

   Trying to find her way back, Ann runs into two scavenging Foetodons.
   Just before one comes close to killing her, a huge Vastatosaurus rex
   emerges and kills it, and then chases after Ann. She narrowly escapes
   the Vastatosaurus rex, but is cornered next to another one. Kong then
   returns and engages the two V-rexes — and then a third one that emerges
   — in a massive battle, with Ann thrown along all throughout, but saved
   by Kong from being killed. Eventually, Kong kills all three of the
   V-rexes. During the battle, Ann realizes that Kong is her only chance
   of surviving the island, and voluntarily lets Kong carry her with him
   afterwards. Kong returns to his lair atop a cliffside, where Ann
   observes him taking in a tranquil sunset. She goes into Kong's hand and
   soon falls asleep.

   Eventually, Jack finds Ann, and they escape while Kong is busy
   defending himself from an attack by giant bat-like creatures called
   Terapusmordax. Kong catches up to them at the wall, but Denham and the
   surviving crew members are waiting and attempt to capture Kong (against
   Ann's pleas), but Kong breaks free of the trap. He kills many of the
   crew members, but at the last minute, Denham successfully subdues Kong
   by smashing a bottle of chloroform across his face. He announces his
   plans to display Kong as, "The Eighth Wonder of the World".

   Months later in New York City, Ann is an anonymous chorus line dancer
   (after refusing large sums to appear on stage with Kong), while the
   lovelorn Jack watches a comedy he wrote whose lead role was meant for
   her. Denham puts the subdued and shackled Kong on display on a Broadway
   stage in front of a large audience. However, angered by the show's fake
   "Ann", and frightened and enraged by the commotion and
   press-flashbulbs, Kong breaks free from his chains, charges into the
   crowd, and runs amok in Times Square searching for Ann picking up any
   blonde in the street only to throw her away when he realizes it isn't
   her.

   Jack attempts to draw Kong away from crowded areas, and a hectic car
   chase through the streets ensues, which ends with Kong almost killing
   Jack. Ann then approaches Kong, calming him down. Carrying Ann with
   him, Kong wanders through the city, eventually into Central Park, where
   he slides around with her on a lake of ice, in a brief moment of
   happiness. Moments later, they are ambushed by the Army, who attack
   Kong with machine gun fire and artillery rounds.

   Reminiscent of his cliff-dwelling, Kong escapes to the Empire State
   Building, which he proceeds to climb, with one hand, holding Ann gently
   in the other. Kong and Ann take in the sunrise at the top of the
   building, until six biplanes (Curtis Helldivers) appear and attack
   Kong. Ann tries to stay with him, but Kong puts her down, climbing to
   the top of the skyscraper as the planes attack. Ann tries to climb
   higher to save him, waving and yelling at the biplanes to stop. Kong
   manages to destroy three of the planes, but is repeatedly
   machine-gunned. Mortally wounded, Kong eventually succumbs to his
   injuries as Ann cries, and falls to his death. Jack rushes to comfort
   Ann as she stands grief-stricken. As he and the crowds view Kong's
   broken body, Carl Denham recites the story's signature quote, "It
   wasn't the airplanes, it was Beauty killed the Beast."
   Spoilers end here.

Production

   Peter Jackson was a nine year old in the New Zealand town of Pukerua
   Bay when he first saw the 1933 version of King Kong. He was in tears in
   front of the TV when Kong slipped off the Empire State Building. At age
   12 he tried to recreate the film using his parents' super-8 camera and
   a model of Kong made of wire and rubber with his mother's fur coat for
   the hair, but eventually gave up on the project. In 1996, he developed
   a version that was in pre-production for 6-7 months, but the studio
   cancelled it. This is most likely because of the release of Mighty Joe
   Young and Godzilla the same year. He then began work on the Lord of the
   Rings trilogy. No casting was ever done, but he had hoped to get either
   George Clooney or Robert DeNiro. With its overwhelming box office and
   critical success, his desire to make King Kong was realized, and he was
   paid $20 million USD to direct this film, the highest salary Hollywood
   ever paid a director.

   The film's budget climbed from an initial $150 million US to a
   record-breaking $207 million, making it the most-expensive film ever
   made in terms of current money spent and the sixth-most expensive film
   adjusted for inflation. Universal Studios only agreed to such an outlay
   after seeing a screening of the unfinished film, to which executives
   responded enthusiastically. The production budget was approximately
   $187 million and, in addition, it is estimated that marketing and
   promotion costs were about $20 million. Production had difficulties,
   such as Peter Jackson's decision to change composers from Howard Shore
   to James Newton Howard seven weeks before the film opened. Also, the
   film was originally set to be 135 minutes, but soon grew to 200,
   prompting Universal executives to fly to New Zealand to view a rough
   cut, but they liked it so their concerns were addressed. Other
   challenges include the rewriting of the script between 1996 and 2005,
   adding more character development to the 1933 story and acting as
   though the 1976 version never existed. The process began with a nine
   minute animatic created by Peter Jackson and shown to the writing team,
   causing Philippa Boyens to cry. Peter Jackson decided early on that he
   did not want Kong to act human, and so they studied hours of gorilla
   footage. Originally, the script began with a prologue of World War I
   that was later cut.

   Peter Jackson has stated that the script significantly changed between
   the 1996 and 2005 drafts. In Jackson's original 1996 draft of the
   script, Ann was the daughter of famed English archaeologist Lord
   Linwood Darrow exploring ancient ruins in Sumatra. They would come into
   conflict with Denham during his filming, and they would uncover a
   hidden Kong statue and the map of Skull Island. This would indicate
   that the island natives were a cult religion that once thrived on the
   mainland of Asia, and all trace of the cult was wiped out, except for
   the few on the island. Instead of a playwright, Jack was the first mate
   and an ex-First World War fighter pilot still struggling with the loss
   of his best friend, who was killed in battle. Herb the camera-man was
   the only supporting character in the original draft who made it to the
   final version. Another difference was that Ann was actually caught in
   the Tyrannosaurus's jaws in the Kong/3 T-Rexes fight. According to the
   draft, Ann was wedged in the mouth and slashed by the teeth; after the
   fight, Kong got her out but by some reason Ann got a fever, which she
   recovered from. (It didn't say how Ann got it, but it was almost
   unmistakably an infection in one of her cuts). Jackson's first rough
   draft was described as a "tongue-in-cheek comedic film with elements of
   Raiders of the Lost Ark and other films," according to Jackson himself.
   Originally, he wanted a comical "monkey-farce" to be released, but he
   credits Universal for pulling the plug, as he was able to rework things
   into what ended up on screen.

   For the character of Kong, Andy Serkis, who modelled its movement, went
   to the London Zoo to watch the gorillas, but was unsatisfied. He ended
   up going to Rwanda to observe mountain gorillas in the wild, with a
   company called Rainbow Tours. Possibly as a result of this, Kong acts
   and moves very much like a real gorilla.

   Apart from Kong, Skull Island is also inhabited by dinosaurs and other
   large fauna. However, though they may look similar, they are not the
   familiar species. Inspired by the works of Dougal Dixon, the designers
   have imagined what 65 million years or more of isolated evolution would
   have done to the dinosaurs. Naturally, the creatures are presented as
   more scientifically accurate than those portrayed in the 1933 version.
   The names of these and hundreds of other beasts are found in the book
   The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island. Here are the
   creatures seen in the film:
     * Vastatosaurus-Rex, which greatly resembles its relative, the T-Rex,
       is seen in the famous "Kong vs. T-rex" scene in the film. This
       creature is on-screen for about 20 minutes.
     * Foetadon is the reptile-like creature which chases Ann into a
       rotting log. Moments later, the Foetadon is grabbed by a
       Vastatosaurus-Rex, pulled from the log, and eaten.

Deleted scenes

   There are many deleted scenes known to exist in King Kong.

   ^ indicates confirmed to be in Extended Edition.
     * Herb the camera-assistant (who has an artificial leg) tells Bruce
       Baxter how he lost his leg on an earlier film shoot with Denham.
       This scene would explain Herb's waddling run and being unable to
       climb, later in the film.
     * Choy tries to throw Denham's camera off the ship when the crew are
       trying to lighten the Venture off the rocks. On the log bridge
       later on, a cursing Lumpy kicks the camera away from Denham.
     * The film crew are on the shore, where Denham films another scene
       with Ann and tells her to scream. Kong's roar is then heard for the
       first time, as if responding from hearing her. Part of this scene
       was included in the trailer of the film.
     * The party is attacked by a Ferrucutus, which tosses a few crew
       members around before being shot in the face. Although
       incapacitated, it is still alive (or at least dying), as indicated
       by its still moving tail.^ (Which is itself a reference to an
       almost identical Stegosaurus attack in the original movie
     * The rescue party build a couple of rafts to cross the swamp, and
       are attacked by a Piranhadon. Denham tries to use a Tommy gun to
       shoot at the creature. Jack is thrown off the raft and is
       threatened by the creature, but is able to escape and hide in the
       roots of a tree. Several of the group are caught and eaten by the
       creature.^
     * Panicking, Lumpy shoots blindly into the forest when he hears a
       rustling noise. Initially, it is implied that he shot Ann Darrow by
       accident, but it turns out to be a giant, flightless bird.^
     * Extended bug pit sequence.^
     * Kong tramples over one of the army trucks.^
     * Ann struggles against 2 armed soldiers restraining her after the
       army has begun to attack, and before Kong grabs her to scale to the
       highest building.
     * It is shown how Kong was transported to New York on the Venture
       (this scene was featured at a convention in which Peter Jackson
       specially created a five-minute montage of outtakes from the film).
     * Two armed soldiers shoot at Kong. (This is probably in the scene
       where the soldiers restrain Ann, and Kong steps on the army
       commander who yells "Fire")
     * Kong reacts as if threatened by a statue that resembles him.

   Some scenes took place in the film's novelization that might exist as
   deleted scenes.
     * After the conversation with Hayes, Lumpy the cook and Jimmy, Denham
       privately confides later on to Driscoll that the map came from the
       Norwegian captain. Denham also reveals hearing of an ancient legend
       of "Kong", but declares that it had nothing to do with his interest
       in Skull Island.
     * The rescue party encounters two Ligocristus dinosaurs, and shoots
       them both.
     * Kong, with Ann, is attacked by a pair of either Venatosaurs or
       juvenile V-rexes. Afterward, Kong eats the kills.
     * Ann encounters a giant spider in a cave.

Release

   A massive advertisement in Australia.
   Enlarge
   A massive advertisement in Australia.

   The marketing campaign for King Kong started in full swing on June 28,
   2005, when the teaser trailer made its debut, first online at the
   official Volkswagen website at 8:45 p.m. EST, then 8:55 p.m. EST across
   media outlets owned by NBC Universal (the parent of Universal Studios),
   including NBC, Bravo!, CNBC and MSNBC. That trailer appeared in
   theatres attached to War of the Worlds, which opened on 29 June. In a
   unique co-promotion, New York State held a special King Kong lottery
   game in which tickets were sold for a one time drawing to be held on
   December 5, 2005 offered a grand prize of $50 million and several
   second prizes of $1 million.

   Jackson also regularly published a series of 'Production Diaries',
   which chronicled the making of the film. The diaries started shortly
   after the DVD release of The Return of the King as a way to give
   Jackson's The Lord of the Rings fans a glimpse of his next project.
   These diaries are edited into broadband-friendly installments of three
   or four minutes each. They consist of features that would normally be
   seen in a making-of documentary: a tour of the set, a roving camera
   introducing key players behind the scene, a peek inside the sound booth
   during last-minute dubbing, or Andy Serkis doing his ape movements in a
   motion capture studio. The production diaries were released on DVD on
   December 13, 2005, one day before the U.S. release of the film. This
   was one of the first occasions in which material that would normally be
   considered supplementary to the DVD release of a film, was not only
   released separately, but done so in a prestige format; the Production
   Diaries came packaged in a box with a set of prints and a replica
   1930s-era clipboard. It is also the first time such material was
   published prior to the release of the film.

   A novelization of the movie and a prequel entitled The Island of the
   Skull was also written. A multi-platform video game entitled Peter
   Jackson's King Kong was released, which featured an alternate ending.
   There was a hardback book entitled The World of Kong, featuring artwork
   from Weta Workshop to describe the fictional beastiary in the film.

Reception

   With a take of $9.7 million box office on its opening day, King Kong
   failed to live up to its pre-release hype, and did not meet
   expectations of Universal Studios executives. Some media outlets
   considered the film to be a flop after its weak opening weekend, as at
   that point it wasn't on pace to make back its 207 million dollar
   budget.. It had an opening weekend of $50.1 million - good for most
   movies, but short of the inflated expectations caused by the movie's
   enormous budget and marketing campaign. In its opening weekend, it
   earned over $15 million less than its only serious competition, The
   Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, had earned during its opening weekend
   one week earlier.

   As of May 11, 2006, the film has grossed $218.1 million in the United
   States (putting it in the top five grossing films of 2005 domestically)
   and approximately an additional $331.1 million outside North America,
   leading to a worldwide total of $549.2 million. It is a general rule of
   thumb that a big-budget movie must earn at least twice its production
   budget to make money, and King Kong exceeded that by grossing almost
   $550 million worldwide. Other factors affect a film's profitability
   besides box office sales, though, such as the DVD sales. Kong, as of
   April 3rd, sold more than 7.2 million DVDs, generating over $100
   million in the largest six-day performance in Universal Studios
   history. And as of June 25, 2006 In addition, King Kong has generated
   $38 million from DVD rental gross. Universal will earn a certain amount
   of revenue from home television rights, advertising tie-ins (such as
   Burger King's King Kong-themed commercials), and other sources;
   however, they will pay a certain amount of gross and net revenues to
   producers and members of the cast and crew.

   Thus, despite the film's inauspicious start at the box office, Kong
   turned out to be very profitable. Ticket and DVD sales combined, the
   film earned well over $600 million, becoming the fourth-highest
   grossing movie in Universal Pictures history. Its release on home video
   and DVD was also a great success.

Critical reaction

   King Kong received a favourable critical response, garnering an 84%
   rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The most common criticisms of the film were
   due to excessive length, over-use of slow motion, and several moments
   where the audience was aware of CGI effects. Positive critical reviews
   regarded it as one of the few good epics and all-round best movies of
   2005. Roger Ebert gave the movie four stars, and listed it as the 8th
   best film of 2005. Similarly, King Kong has been included in many
   critics' Top Ten of 2005 lists. The film received four Academy Award
   nominations for Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and Art
   Direction, winning all but the last. Some criticized the film for
   retaining racist stereotypes present in the original film, though it
   was not suggested that Jackson had done this intentionally.

Possible future

   Peter Jackson has expressed his desire to remaster the film in 3-D at
   some point in the future. Though this has been officially disclaimed as
   a potential project by Universal Studios, both Shrek and Terminator 2:
   Judgment Day had short 3-D versions made for the Studio as theme park
   attractions. Jackson was also seen shooting with a 3-D camera at times
   during the shoot of King Kong. The film is more than 90% CGI mastered,
   so converting the scene to 3-D is largely a software exercise, with
   some creative work required for the closer shots of actors. All the
   face shots of Kong can be "3D-ised" from the original animation files.
   It is estimated that the conversion would cost about 10 million
   dollars, due to the great length of the movie (3 hours 8 minutes).

Cast

         Actor                                 Role
   Jack Black         Carl Denham
   Naomi Watts        Ann Darrow
   Adrien Brody       Jack Driscoll
   Thomas Kretschmann Captain Englehorn
   Evan Parke         Ben Hayes
   Andy Serkis        Lumpy the cook & King Kong ( motion capture and voice)
   Colin Hanks        Preston
   Jamie Bell         Jimmy
   Lobo Chan          Choy
   Kyle Chandler      Bruce Baxter
   John Sumner        Herb the camera man
   Pip Mushin         Zelman
   Ric Herbert        Poehler (Sleazy Man)
   Jim Knobeloch      Farragher (Thuggish Man)
   David Pittu        Charles Weston
   Ray Woolf          Helmsman
   Chris A. Romero    Jeff

Cinematic and literary allusions

   Jamie Bell's character is repeatedly shown reading Joseph Conrad's
   Heart of Darkness, a novel about a journey into a primitive land. Jack
   Black and critics have noted Carl Denham's similarity to Orson Welles.
   When Jack Driscoll is searching for a place to sleep in the animal
   storage hold, a box behind him reads ' Sumatran Rat Monkey — Beware the
   bite!' - a reference to the creature that causes mayhem in Peter
   Jackson's film Braindead (1992) (in that film, the rat monkey is
   described as only being found on Skull Island).

Soundtrack

   The musical score for King Kong was composed by James Newton Howard.
   Originally Howard Shore, who worked for Peter Jackson on The Lord of
   the Rings, was to compose the score for the film, and recorded several
   completed cues before he was removed from the project by Jackson.
   Howard joined the project with literally weeks to score and record more
   than two hours of music. Shore still makes a cameo appearance as the
   ill-fated conductor in the theatre from which Kong escapes.

DVD release

   King Kong was released on DVD on March 28, 2006 in the United States.
   The three versions that came out were single disc fullscreen, single
   disc widescreen and a 2-Disc Widescreen Special Edition. The second
   disc of the Special Edition contains the remainder of almost all the
   KongisKing.net production diaries not contained on the Peter Jackson's
   Production Diaries DVD set. The only missing episode is "13 Weeks To
   Go" which contained footage of Howard Shore recording the original
   score. It is still available on the website.

   All DVD versions of the movie contain at least four known instances of
   DVD "watermarking" that are assumed to be anti-piracy measures. In
   Region 1, the letters "KKDD" appear for one frame on the character
   Bruce Baxter's ( Kyle Chandler) arm at 00:30:29 and 2:01:33. Another is
   seen at 1:00:05 on the arm of an islander. The fourth instance is at
   01:30:05 on the bamboo stick King Kong is chewing on. Region 2 has the
   same instances, but the letters "KKID" are used instead.

   On Tuesday, June 27, 2006, www.kongisking.net reported that Spanish DVD
   website Zonadvd officially confirmed the release date of an extended
   edition of King Kong on November 15, 2006. It was also said that three
   discs would be included in the set. Unseen features, including deleted
   scenes, commentaries, behind-the-scenes footage, and so on are sure to
   follow (these features were previously mentioned before).

   The 3 disc Deluxe Extended Edition was released on November 14th 2006
   in the U.S.A., and on November 1st in Australia. 13 minutes were put
   back into the film, and a further 40 minutes presented alongside the
   rest of the special features. The film was spread onto the first two
   discs with commentary by Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens, and some
   featurettes on Disc 2, whilst the main Special Features are on Disc 3.
   Another set was released, including a WETA figurine of a bullet-ridden
   Kong scaling the Empire State Building, roaring at the army with Ann in
   hand. The extended film amounts to 192 minutes in total.

Extended Edition scenes

   The extended edition not only has 13 minutes of added footage
   reincorporated into the film, 40 minutes of deleted scenes on the DVD,
   but also over 120 new visual effects shots:
     * The crew is attacked by a Ferrucutus.
     * The crew is attacked by many Scorpio-pedes.
     * The crew is attacked by a Piranhadon.
     * Extended Bug Pit scene.
     * Kong leaps from cliff to cliff killing crew members.
     * Kong throws a stone at natives on a cliff.
     * A military truck with a man insulting Kong is destroyed.
     * Kong kills the man who issues the "FIRE!" command.
     * Kong picks up a car and throws at another car.

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