After moving his production company to Beverly Hills, De Laurentiis first met with screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Jr., who at the time was writing "Three Days of the Condor". Impressed with his work on the film, De Laurentiis contacted Semple about writing "King Kong", to which Semple immediately signed on. During their collaboration on the project, De Laurentiis already had two ideas in mind—that the film would set in present day and the climax would set on top of the newly constructed World Trade Center.