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» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » Film-Yak   » "King Kong" will be three-hours. (Page 1)

 
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Author Topic: "King Kong" will be three-hours.
Ron Yost
Master Film Handler

Posts: 344
From: Paso Robles, CA
Registered: Aug 2003


 - posted 10-29-2005 02:23 PM      Profile for Ron Yost   Email Ron Yost   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
October 27, 2005

Copyright 2005, The New York Times Company

A BIG GORILLA WEIGHS IN, By Sharon Waxman

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 26 - In hiring Peter Jackson, the Oscar-winning director of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, to remake the monster classic "King Kong," Universal Pictures took a daring leap, paying him $20 million to direct, produce and be the co-writer of the film.

With seven weeks to go before the movie's release, the risks are becoming clearer. After seeing a version of the film in late September at Mr. Jackson's studio in New Zealand, Universal executives agreed to release "King Kong" at a length of three hours.

The film is substantially longer than Universal had anticipated and presents dual obstacles: the extra length has helped increase the budget by a third, to $207 million, while requiring the studio, owned by General Electric, to reach for the kind of long-term audience interest that made hits out of three-hour movies like "Titanic" and the films in Mr. Jackson's "Rings" trilogy.

Hollywood blockbusters have increasingly relied on big releases that bring in as much as half of their ticket sales on the first weekend. But long films receive far fewer showings per day, and the most successful ones, like "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001) by Mr. Jackson, which took in $315 million at the domestic box office for New Line Cinema, have remained in theaters for well over half a year.

The film industry and Universal could use a big seller.

Hollywood has been struggling this year at the box office, with overall revenue down more than half a billion dollars, about 8 percent, from last year's total, according to Box Office Mojo, an online tracking service. Industry experts attribute the decline to a migration of audiences to other forms of electronic entertainment, whether television, DVD's, video games or the Internet. Universal has had a mediocre year at the box office. The studio had a hit in the summer with the comedy "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," but has endured disappointments, like the drama "Cinderella Man," and has had lackluster results with films like "The Perfect Man," "Kicking and Screaming" and "Doom," which opened last week to a tepid $15 million.

Asked about the length of "King Kong," Universal executives said they saw it as an advantage in an era when jaded moviegoers are hungering for something extraordinary.

"This is a three-hour feast of an event," said Marc Shmuger, vice chairman of Universal Pictures, who described the film as a tragic love story between the ape and Naomi Watts, who plays Ann Darrow, an actress. "I've never come close to seeing an artist working at this level."

Set for release on Dec. 14, "King Kong" retells the classic beauty-and-the-beast tale first filmed in 1933, with its lasting image of Kong atop the Empire State Building, and remade in 1976. Along with Ms. Watts, it stars Jack Black, Adrien Brody and a 25-foot, computer-animated gorilla.

This time around, the picture depends upon another oversize talent in the person of Mr. Jackson, who was granted an unusual degree of control at a time when studios are trimming costs and tightening their grips on most productions. Not only did Mr. Jackson produce and direct, and also write with his longtime partner, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens, but his companies Weta Digital and Weta Workshop also created the physical and computer special effects in the film at Mr. Jackson's studio in New Zealand.

Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount took a risk in granting the director James Cameron a similar degree of control over his famously overbudget 1997 film "Titanic," and eventually came up winners. In that case, Mr. Cameron's three-hour epic, a love story set in the midst of the ship's sinking, went on to break box-office records and win 11 Oscars. With "King Kong," Universal executives say they are convinced that they have an epic of comparable worth, even though they were surprised by the length.

"I anticipated it would be long, but not this long," the Universal chairwoman, Stacey Snider, said. As recently as late September, she expected about two hours and 40 minutes, she said. But on Wednesday she expressed delight with the picture she's got: "This is a masterpiece. I can't wait to unveil it."

The increased length, Ms. Snider said, means that the movie will cost $32 million more than planned, adding to expenses that had already gone up $25 million from an original $150 million production budget.

Who will pay for these budget overruns has been the subject of intense negotiations over the last two weeks, with representatives of the studio and the director haggling over who was responsible, according to those involved in the negotiations.

Ms. Snider said that as of Wednesday, all had been resolved, with the studio more or less splitting the $32 million expense with Mr. Jackson.

In an e-mail message, Mr. Jackson appeared to disagree, saying instead that he would be paying for those expenditures, which were mainly associated with extra digital-effects shots. Referring to his partner, Ms. Walsh, Mr. Jackson wrote: "Since Fran and I believed in the three-hour cut and wanted to take responsibility for the extra length, we offered to pay for these extra shots ourselves. That's what we're doing." He did not say how much that would be, but said the extra effects shot would cost "considerably below $32 million."

A spokesman for Universal responded, "We are working together to cover overages."

In granting Mr. Jackson immense latitude, Universal relied not just on his skills, but also a huge fan base, much of which has followed the production through the director's frequent communications on a Web site, www.kongisking.net.

But few elements of the film have been seen by the larger public, and even Universal executives saw a finished version of King Kong's face - with its expressive eyes, broadly fierce nose and mane of computer-generated hair - only in recent days.

Universal lost an opportunity to capitalize on a "Kong" revenue stream when an anticipated deal to release the film on Imax screens in December, at the same time the movie would appear in regular theaters, failed to materialize, and Imax chose to show Warner Brothers' new "Harry Potter" film, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."

"We think 'King Kong' will be a big movie," Richard L. Gelfond, co-chairman of Imax, said, "but unfortunately we could not agree on deal terms, including the box-office split."

Ms. Snider said Imax could not guarantee space in its theaters at the time of Kong's release, and acknowledged that both the studio and Mr. Jackson were disappointed.

A spokeswoman for NBC Universal said Bob Wright, the chairman, has been told of the rising cost and length of "King Kong." "Bob is more than aware of what is going on with this production and other major productions, and he has enormous confidence in the leadership team at Universal Studios," said the spokeswoman, Anna Perez.

Ms. Snider said she did not think the three-hour length would be an obstacle for moviegoers. Three-hour epics, she said, are Mr. Jackson's "brand."

Exhibitors have long complained that very long films make it harder to draw audiences, though in this difficult year at the box office, they have complained louder about not having enough good films to show. Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, which tracks the box office for theater owners, agreed that long movies posed problems. "But if it's a really fine film, it won't be a detriment to its success," he said.

-- end article

Ron Yost

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David Stambaugh
Film God

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From: Eugene, Oregon
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 - posted 10-29-2005 02:51 PM      Profile for David Stambaugh   Author's Homepage   Email David Stambaugh   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
If the film is good enough, 3 hours is what it deserves and audiences will eat it up. Peter Jackson's LOTR movies were good enough -- hopefully Kong will be too.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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From: Lawton, OK, USA
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 - posted 10-29-2005 03:22 PM      Profile for Bobby Henderson   Email Bobby Henderson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
The IMAX DMR thing is actually kind of stupid.

Universal could make some 5-perf 70mm blowups and essentially have the same thing as a DMR release, but using one third of the 70mm film stock. With just a little work between themselves and some movie theater circuits they could indeed have 70mm engagements set in key markets around the country.

Given that we're still 2 months from release date, a 5-perf 70mm solution would still be do-able.

Of course, if the show were rendered at only HDTV quality 2K (the whole thing is very likely output via digital intermediate) then the 70mm thing is only going to be good for projecting onto oversized stadium seated theater screens.

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Pravin Ratnam
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 - posted 10-29-2005 05:32 PM      Profile for Pravin Ratnam   Email Pravin Ratnam   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Solution - King Kong Vol 1, Vol 2

At the end of Vol1, Jack Black tells some lady, "Is Watts aware that their(Kong's too) son ........is still alive?"

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Andy Summers
Master Film Handler

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 - posted 10-29-2005 06:27 PM      Profile for Andy Summers         Edit/Delete Post 
The original King Kong was 1hour 41minutes the remake was 2hours 14miutes so three hours long wow hope looks good and sounds good with lots of low end in all the channels?

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Robert Harrison
Expert Film Handler

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From: Harwood Heights, Illinois, USA
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 - posted 10-29-2005 06:28 PM      Profile for Robert Harrison   Email Robert Harrison   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Perhaps Mr. Jackson is just "jacking" Universal around for not letting him do the film earlier. You might recall that he was originally hired to do this remake just before his film "The Frighteners" was released. When that film didn't do much business (it was highly entertaining, though), they apparently reneged.

Now, post-"LOTR," the folks at Universal have regained their hard-on to do this project, a boner they have had since the 70s, when they announced "The Legend of King Kong" (to be presented in Sensurround, no less) but had to put it on the back burner because of Paramount's 1976 version (which, word was, Universal has a "cut" of, regardless).

Frankly, these directors do tend to get full of themselves. We have all heard the stories of how they fall in love with every frame of film shot and can't bear to cut anything. Obviously, he did with the LOTR trilogy, but he made damn sure there were longer versions available on DVD. Perhaps that is the route he should take with "Kong." If it goes over well, then you can add all the filler back in for home video.

My friends and I are giant monster movie fans. One thing we can't stand is what we call I.L.O.M. That is an acronyn which stands for Irritating Lack Of Monsters. There had better be a ratio heavy on monster footage for any given running time or boredom sets in. For a three hour film, I want at least 2 hours of monsters. I could give a flying fart about Adrien Brody wanting to pork Naomi Watts. I want to see the star of the film, Mr. Kong himself, and lots of other creatures, not just a damn snake like back in the 76 version.

And, yes, that can be boring, also. So, we're back to "why does this film have to be so damn long?" It probably doesn't. But, if it is successful, I hope Sony Pictures will release an English language version of "Godzilla: Final Wars" to theatres. At over 2 hours, that is the longest (Japanese-made) Godzilla movie ever, but it has monsters up the wazoo!

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Michael Schaffer
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Boardwalk Hotel?"

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 - posted 10-29-2005 07:11 PM      Profile for Michael Schaffer   Author's Homepage   Email Michael Schaffer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
This movie will bomb massively. Is Peter Jackson the Michael Cimino of our time?

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Andy Summers
Master Film Handler

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From: Bournemouth Dorset United kingdom
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 - posted 10-29-2005 07:46 PM      Profile for Andy Summers         Edit/Delete Post 
Michael’

That was “The Deer Hunter” 1978 not sure what you mean by this, but are you saying this maybe a flop and at the box office as well?

But technically it well look good and sound good, and yet Oscar may handout an award for visual effects and sound effects editing?

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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From: Lawton, OK, USA
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 - posted 10-29-2005 08:32 PM      Profile for Bobby Henderson   Email Bobby Henderson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Andy, I guess you never heard of "Heaven's Gate," correct?

I'm not sure I would call Peter Jackson the "Michael Cimino of our time" either. But I'll certainly agree 100% with the tag if he sticks a 30 minute long wedding sequence into the movie.

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Andy Summers
Master Film Handler

Posts: 397
From: Bournemouth Dorset United kingdom
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 - posted 10-29-2005 08:42 PM      Profile for Andy Summers         Edit/Delete Post 
Bobby’

Yeah I’ve head about that the reviews of it around the early 1980’s weren’t good and so on. So yes I’ve heard of it…

So this King Kong will be a King Turkey.?

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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From: Lawton, OK, USA
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 - posted 10-29-2005 09:47 PM      Profile for Bobby Henderson   Email Bobby Henderson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I'm not going to pronounce judgment against the film before I see it. The movie trailer, at least, looks pretty cool. Download Quicktime 7 and watch in HD from Apple's website if your computer can handle it.

In 1997, lots of people were predicting "Titanic" would suck due its bladder bursting run time and giant budget. But the movie turned out to be pretty cool. It broke box office records, won Oscars and got a lot of women to think of Leonardo DiCaprio when they masturbated.

Naomi Watts is certainly good inspiration for rubbing one out.

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Jonathan M. Crist
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 - posted 10-29-2005 10:15 PM      Profile for Jonathan M. Crist   Email Jonathan M. Crist   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I understand that Chronicles of Naria is also supposed to be about three hours as well.

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Frank Dubrois
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 - posted 10-29-2005 11:05 PM      Profile for Frank Dubrois     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Put me to sleep. 3 hours of crap no doubt. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy put me to sleep. Thanks to Peter Jackson, I'm getting plenty of sleep now.

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Matt Fields
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 - posted 10-29-2005 11:29 PM      Profile for Matt Fields   Email Matt Fields   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Anyone who thinks that people do not want to see a giant monkey fight with dinosaurs does not have their pulse on the movie going public. [Smile]

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Dustin Mitchell
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 - posted 10-29-2005 11:38 PM      Profile for Dustin Mitchell   Email Dustin Mitchell   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
But three hours? What in the King Kong story warrants three hours of film time? If Jackson pulls it off I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong but honestly three hours is way to long for this type of film.

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