People love King Kong. There’s no doubt about it. And because of that, Spirit Pictures has optioned the rights to the book, Kong: King Of Skull Island, a prequel to the story of the giant gorilla’s journey to New York. The novel is only a few years old, written around the time Peter Jackson was producing his Kong remake, and takes the story back to find out how the big ape became the king of Skull Island, introducing us to other massive gorillas as well as more dinosaurs and other creatures that live on the legendary isle.
A film version of King Of Skull Island was originally being developed by effects legend Ray Harryhausen, but it’s now moved over to Spirit, who plan to use motion capture technology similar to that used by Robert Zemeckis in The Polar Express and Beowulf to bring Kong’s world to life.
Spirit seem to like working on things linked to Ray Harryhausen and King Kong’s original director, Merian C. Cooper (whose heirs own the rights to Kong), as they’re also developing War Eagles, which is set in 1939 and revolves around an ace fighter-pilot who tests a new jet and crash-lands in the arctic, where he encounters a lost civilisation. It was originally planned by Cooper and Harryhausen decades ago (around 1939, in fact) but is now getting a new lease of life through Spirit.
There’s no news yet on when War Eagles or Kong: King Of Skull Island might make it onto the big screen.