For those that cannot get enough King Kong action, you can gear up for a new production on the small screen that will go back to the very beginning. According to Deadline, King Kong Skull Island will be produced by MarVista Entertainment and IM Global Television as they retrace the steps the giant gorilla took to landing on the inhabited island prior to the events of the 2017 motion picture Kong: Skull Island from director Jordan Vogt-Roberts.
A commercial success in its own right, the movie has opened up the universe as the narrative looks for a female lead for the show. There is no expected link to occur between the movie and the series as they look to write the screenplay from a pair of novels.
Studios Want a New Gen of Kong Fans
Oscar-winning duo Jonathan Penner and Stacy Title from The Bye Bye Man fame are penning the story as they seek inspiration from two books in particular. King Kong and Kong: King of Skull Island were developed by Joe DeVito and Brad Strickland as the adventure tale attempts to strike a more dramatic tone than the action blockbuster in theaters this year.
CEO of IM Global Television Mark Stern had an early look at what the pair have been working on behind the scenes and he likes what he sees.
"There’s clearly a deep and abiding interest in this timeless story. We love Stacy and Jonathan’s approach to this adaptation and look forward to partnering with MarVista as we bring this gripping tale of survival and adventure to life for a new generation of Kong fans."
MarVista’s CEO Fernando Szew agreed with Stern's sentiment.
"Jonathan and Stacy have taken a world that has enraptured audiences in all its many forms over the years and given it a contemporary, female-focused spin."
Why Charlie Chucked In Pacific Rim Return
As part of the ever expanding MonsterVerse that includes the Godzilla and Kong franchises, Charlie Hunnam told Den of Geek why he would not be suiting up again for more giant robotic action for the sequel Pacific Rim 2. Citing the sale of Legendary to Wanda that accelerated his plans, The Lost City of Z star admitted that the external shift was out of his control.
“There was a huge scheduling conflict. I was already really, really invested in doing Papillion. What happened was Legendary was sold to Wanda, which is the big Chinese corporation, and Pacific Rim, although it underperformed in other territories in the world, was an enormous success in China.
All of a sudden, it became their primary focus to make this and they wanted to do it very, very rapidly… I think their schedule subsequently changed, and I might have been able to do both, but at that time, they were writing the script and they needed to know, was I in or was I out?
I have great relationships with everyone at Legendary, and they were incredibly generous to me and let me out of my contract. I had to do the film whether I liked it or not. When I spoke to (former Legendary chairman) Thomas Tull, who is a dear friend of mine, I said, ‘Listen, man. It’s not that my heart is not in this. I’m invested in this creatively, but my heart’s going to be broken because I already was going to do this other film.’
He was like, ‘Dude, you were going to do that other film and that’s where your heart is. I don’t want you being on set if you’re not going to be happy, so go do the other film,’ which was ludicrously generous of him. But that’s just the type of man he is.”
Source: Deadline, Dark Horizons
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