Things for production quickly got worse almost immediately as it was beset with problems of giant ape proportions and nearly all due to trying to build an ape of such a size that could never be successfully achieved. Helming the film would be John Guillerman whose previous had include the all-star disaster epic The Towering Inferno and was keen to direct the film but it soon became clear that the scheduled release date of the film for Christmas the same year was extremely tight. Massive monsters, supersize sets – the making of Godzilla v Kong Already the films $15m budget (at that point in time, the most expensive film ever made) would soon balloon. This version of Kong would be extremely effects heavy using front and rear projection, matte paintings, miniatures, stereo projection, split screen and blue screen (a new technique at the time) many of which would be overseen by the seventy one year old Harold Wellam who ironically had worked on the 1933 Kong as an uncredited assistant cameraman. Except it quickly became clear that a 40 foot working ape was impractical and massively expensive and instead was reduced to building an arm with a large scale dummy Kong that would be laid on the Plaza outside the World Trade Centre where the film would end despite the Empire State Building campaigning to have the film shoot there where the original film had ended. But what of the real star of the show, Kong himself? No stop motion here, instead it would be a combination of the work of make-up artist Rick Baker, who was quickly establishing himself as one of the best make-up artists ever, with a full scale mechanical ape.

Announced to the world press in January 1976 in a typically showman like way he revealed that Jeff Bridges would star alongside a hitherto largely unknown model Jessica Lange who he had signed to a seven year contract determined to make her a star. And that that’s what the late producer Dino De Laurentiis did are moving to Hollywood and achieving critical acclaim and box office success with ‘Serpico’ before he set his eyes on a King Kong (1976) remake. Whilst the 1933 version of King Kong remains a beloved and iconic classic with a stop motion monster that inspired a generation of film makers it was inevitable that an updated remake with a more state of the art ape would be made.

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