The prequel to the 1933 "King Kong" is on the way, and has been making headlines recently due to the star cast it has attracted. This includes Tom Hiddleston, Michael Keaton and J.K. Simmons. All three are currently at the height of their careers, with Tom Hiddleston playing Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and both Keaton and Simmons being frontrunners for a best actor and best supporting actor at the academy awards this year. The attached director is Jordan Vogt-Roberts who has done a couple indy films, most notably 2013's "Kings of Summer" and the screenwriter is academy award nominee John Gatnis. The first draft of the script was written by Max Borenstain, who most notably wrote the screenplay for 2014's Godzilla. It seems like the team behind this prequel is not very experienced with big films, and this will be completely new ground for everyone except Borenstain. It should be interesting to see what they do with the biggest project of their careers, and if the movie is going to turn out any good. The cast however, is awesome. I am really excited to see Hiddleston in another big franchise, since he never really got the chance to brake away from the MCU. Keaton has had a real career revitalisation with "Birdman" and I can not wait to see him in anything he does. Simmons has always been great and I especially loved him in the original Spiderman trilogy, and in "Thank You For Smoking". He is a great character actor, and his recent Oscar nomination for "Whiplash" only solidifies him as an acting giant. Overall, I am really excited to see this film, because of the cast, and the concept itself. I always wanted to know how Kong originated and how he ended up on Skull Island. I am not sure about the director and the writers, but I hope that this is going to be the breakthrough film for all three. I have a couple questions however, which I am really curious about. First of all, is King Kong going to be motion captured? I think that he really should be, because it gives the character a lot of dimension and personality. If he is, then obviously the man to go to is Andy Serkis, who is the best "ape" actor working today. He already played Kong in 2005, and even though it seems like this is a completely different franchise, I really want him to return. Serkis is involved in pretty much all motion capture performances today, even coaching Mark Ruffalo, and co playing the Hulk with him in the upcoming "Avengers: Age of Ultron". He really knows what he is doing, and there is no one who knows as much, or can bring the same level of realism to an ape character. Another question that I have is whether Peter Jackson is at all involved with this film. He is a huge King Kong fan, and the 1933 version is one of his favourite films of all time. He is known to have a big collection of props from the classic monster film, and payed tons of homages to it in his 2005 remake. So far, it doesn't seem like he has anything to do with the prequel, but I think that he could be a really great addition to the pretty young, inexperienced team working on the film right now. I think he would be very beneficial as a producer/advisor. Also, his VFX company Weta Digital is one of the best in the world, and it would be awesome if they worked on this film.
In conclusion, I am pretty excited about this film, and want to see how exactly they execute it. I love the 2005 version, and this being the next film about the 8th wonder of the world, it will be interesting to observe whether it stands up to the original, as well as to the Peter Jackson remake.
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