Kong: Skull Island had quite the legacy to live up to after being based on one of the most highly regarded classic films of all time, not to mention following up Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake which was at the very least a crowning technical achievement, even if you weren’t moved by the epic approach to the movie monster’s story. Thankfully, director Jordan Vogt-Roberts created something completely different that was able to stand on its own two feet, rather literally when you consider that this new Kong is a giant biped. And to make sure everyone understood that, he almost opened the movie by throwing some shade at the King that came before it.
Find out about the Kong Skull Island alternate opening below.
Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts recently appeared on the Empire podcast to talk about Kong: Skull Island, and there he revealed the pitch he had for the opening of the movie, which the studio would let him do:
“The alternate opening that I pitched to them, the studio said: ‘No. You’re crazy. You can’t do that!’ So it’s World War II. A full squad comes to this beach. They’re killing each other – and then suddenly, this giant monkey (that looks a lot like the monkey from the last ‘King Kong’ movie) comes out of the jungle. And they just kill it. It’s dead. And you’re sitting there going, ‘Wait, did they just kill King Kong? Did they kill the hero of this film?’ And then you’d hear a roar and see a much bigger creature – the real King Kong. That was the crazy version of me wanting to send a message that this isn’t like other King Kong movies that you’ve seen. The studio were like: ‘You can’t do that.’”
That certainly would have sent a message, but it also would have felt like unnecessarily kicking dirt in the face of Peter Jackson and the King Kong he created with the masterful motion-capture work of Andy Serkis and visual effects from Weta Workshop. If there was a way to do this scene without making it seem like it was an overt jab at Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of King Kong, it might have worked, but even then it would have been hard to convince viewers that it wasn’t some kind of slight against the Kong’s that came before.
At least Jordan Vogt-Roberts still got his World War II opening, giving some backstory for what’s to come later in the movie, albeit on a little bit of a smaller scale. In fact, the opening that ended up in the final cut of the movie probably works in favor of the new King Kong, so that we don’t see the monster in full until about 20 minutes after the opening scene. While that opening introduction would have been pretty bad ass, seeing him for the first time when he unleashes his strength upon all the military helicopters invading his territory is even more awesome.
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