USA: Peter Jackson's 2005 version "King Kong" premieres in New York

The famous gorilla, King Kong is back in New York City after an absence of nearly 30 years. The giant ape, who was last seen in a 1976 film of the same name, will be gracing silver screens again later this month in the new "King Kong" film, directed by New Zealander Peter Jackson. As part of the world premiere celebrations of the film in the Big Apple, not only was there the usual red carpet, but also a special Times Square ceremony in which New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg declared December 5th as King Kong Day in the city. Later, at the premiere of the film at a Loews Theater in midtown Manhattan, Jackson spoke about directing the film of his dreams. Jackson entered the film world thanks to his admiration of the first "King Kong" film of 1933, which he first saw at age nine. Jackson and his cohorts almost made a remake of "King Kong" in 1996 but had to stop as reportedly, Universal Studios, "thought better of the idea". At that point, they had already done substantial research and preparation for the film. While looking back, Jackson is now glad that he didn't make the film in 1996. "Fate is always, you know, has a tendency to guide your life, you can't do much about it and the movie today is much better than it would have been in 1996, so things worked out well and we made Lord of the Rings in between too, so that worked okay as well," he said. Actress Naomi Watts, who plays the role of Ann Durrow in the film, was also on the red carpet and professed to have fallen very much in love with King Kong. "That's the thing about this movie is, even going back and seeing the original version with the kind of, rudimentary, rickety effects, it still stands up - that love story is still incredibly moving and I thought, wow, doing that today with the sophistication level of effects, particularly with Peter Jackson, it should, it should really, do something special and Kong has just got the biggest heart, you can't not fall in love," Watts said. While for Adrien Brody, Watt's love interest in the film, one of the highlights of shooting the film was the chance to do various action sequences. He even did some stunts on his own. "I convinced Peter (Jackson) because I used to drag race when I was a kid growing up in New York and we were initially going to do an effects set up for all my driving sequences of trying to lure Kong from the city. And I boasted about my driving prowess and he, I showed up at the set one night and he had a camera, a car filled with cameras and I did all my driving sequences, and it was really exciting," Brody told Reuters on the red carpet. Actor Jack Black, who plays the role of film-maker Carl Denham in the 2005 "King Kong", explained what the giant gorilla stood for and why he is so attractive as a character. "He (King Kong) is kind of like Zeus, or Hercules, he is like a myth, you know, he's like an archetype and he is the monster that's inside all of us. And he represents, let me finish, he represents, the inner beast, because we say we are all civilized but right underneath the surface, there is a hungry, horny killer - Kong," Black said. Actor Andy Serkis, who worked with Jackson in two "The Lord of the Rings" films, playing the role of "Gollum", created the emotions and soul of King Kong by doing the motion capture for the ape. Serkis actually researched gorillas in Rwanda as part of the work he did while preparing for the role. "Once I started researching gorillas I found out how interesting they were and how totally different they were and how, they are 97 percent genetically the same as us gorillas and so I wanted to make Kong very much more - compared to the original version - more rooted in guerilla behaviour," he explained. King Kong can be seen beating his chest atop the Empire State Building, beginning Wednesday, December 14, when the film is released across the world.

ITN Source | December 8, 2005

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