the first king kong movie was made in 1933.
the first king kong movie was made in 1933.
when was the first king kong movie made?
1933
in a four-day bench trial in los angeles, judge manuel real made the final decision and gave his verdict on november 24, 1976, affirming that the "king kong" novelization and serialization were indeed in the public domain, and universal could make its movie as long as it did not infringe on original elements in the 1933 rko film, which had "not" passed into the public domain (universal postponed their plans to film a king kong movie, called "the legend of king kong", for at least 18 months, after cutting a deal with dino de laurentiis that included a percentage of box office profits from his remake).
king kong
the film had its roots in an earlier concept for a new "king kong" feature developed by willis o'brien, animator of the original stop-motion kong. around 1960, o'brien came up with a proposed treatment, "king kong meets frankenstein", where kong would fight against a giant version of frankenstein's monster in san francisco. o'brien took the project (which consisted of some concept art and a screenplay treatment) to rko to secure permission to use the king kong character. during this time the story was renamed "king kong vs. the ginko" when it was believed that universal had the rights to the frankenstein name (it actually only had the rights to the monster's makeup design). o'brien was introduced to producer john beck, who promised to find a studio to make the film (at this point in time, rko was no longer a production company). beck took the story treatment and had george worthing yates flesh it out into a screenplay. the story was slightly altered and the title changed to "king kong vs. prometheus", returning the name to the original frankenstein concept ("the modern prometheus" was the alternate name of frankenstein in the original novel). unfortunately, the cost of stop-motion animation discouraged potential studios from putting the film into production. after shopping the script around overseas, beck eventually attracted the interest of the japanese studio toho, which had long wanted to make a "king kong" film. after purchasing the script, they decided to replace the frankenstein creature with godzilla to be king kong's opponent and would have shinichi sekizawa rewrite yates's script. the studio thought that it would be the perfect way to celebrate its thirtieth year in production. it was one of 5 big banner releases for the company to celebrate the anniversary alongside "sanjuro", "", "lonely lane", and "born in sin". john beck's dealings with willis o'brien's project were done behind his back and o'brien was never credited for his idea. merian c. cooper was bitterly opposed to the project stating in a letter addressed to his friend douglas burden, "i was indignant when some japanese company made a belittling thing, to a creative mind, called "king kong vs godzilla". i believe they even stooped so low as to use a man in a gorilla suit, which i have spoken out against so often in the early days of "king kong"". in 1963 he filed a lawsuit to enjoin distribution of the movie against john beck, as well as toho and universal (the film's u.s. copyright holder) claiming that he outright owned the king kong character, but the lawsuit never went through as it turned out he was not kong's sole legal owner as he had previously believed.
king kong vs. godzilla