47 Fun Facts About King Kong

In the original 1933 film, Kong makes his last stand on top of which New York skyscraper?

Kong climbs The Empire State Building, which opened in 1931 as the world's tallest building, and is shot down from its summit by biplanes in the 1933 film's finale.

Which actress played Ann Darrow, the 'golden woman' offered to Kong, in the 1933 film?

Fay Wray played Ann Darrow, the out-of-work actress Denham recruits for his voyage; she had already starred for the same filmmakers in The Most Dangerous Game (1932).

What is the famous final line of the 1933 King Kong, spoken by Carl Denham over the ape's body?

Denham's closing line, 'It was Beauty killed the Beast.', answers a policeman who credits the airplanes and caps the beauty-and-the-beast theme the film was built around.

The 1933 King Kong was directed and produced by Ernest B. Schoedsack and which other filmmaker?

Cooper had wanted to make a gorilla film since 1929 and originally hoped to shoot in Africa and on Komodo.

Who created the 1933 stop-motion effects that brought Kong and the dinosaurs to life?

Willis O'Brien animated Kong frame by frame, moving jointed armatures a fraction between exposures, and combined the miniatures with live actors using rear projection and glass paintings.

Roughly how tall were the stop-motion Kong models used in the 1933 film?

The stop-motion Kong models measured roughly 14 to 18 inches, built on jointed metal armatures padded with cotton, latex and rabbit fur that rippled as animators handled it.

Which studio produced and released the 1933 King Kong?

RKO Radio Pictures, in receivership during the Depression, produced and released the film in March 1933; its strong first run was a major boost to the struggling studio.

A book about which animals did Cooper call King Kong's 'most important influence'?

Komodo dragons were the subject of W. Douglas Burden's 1927 book The Dragon Lizards of Komodo, which gave the film's co-creator the idea of a gorilla fighting giant lizards.

What 1930 hoax 'documentary' about women sacrificed to gorillas is said to have persuaded RKO to greenlight Kong?

Ingagi (1930) faked scenes of African women offered to gorillas and grossed a fortune; its success helped convince the studio that a gorilla-and-woman picture would sell.

Which thriller writer got story credit on King Kong despite dying soon after a rough draft?

Edgar Wallace, the prolific British thriller writer, died of pneumonia in February 1932 weeks after delivering a draft; the credits still read 'from an idea conceived by' him.

Worried about similarities to King Kong, RKO bought the rights to which Arthur Conan Doyle prehistoric-creatures novel?

The Lost World, Doyle's 1912 novel about dinosaurs surviving on a South American plateau, had been filmed in 1925 with stop-motion effects that Kong's team would surpass.

Who composed the score for the 1933 King Kong, one of the first great symphonic film scores?

Max Steiner, the Vienna-born composer who later scored Gone with the Wind (1939) and Casablanca (1942), wrote Kong's leitmotif-driven score, a landmark in sound-era film music.

The 1933 King Kong premiered on 2 March 1933 at the RKO Roxy and which other New York venue?

Radio City Music Hall, open only since December 1932, screened the premiere simultaneously with the neighbouring RKO Roxy, giving the film both of Manhattan's largest new theatres.

In which year was King Kong added to the US National Film Registry?

In 1991 the Library of Congress placed King Kong on the National Film Registry as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant, alongside the same year's inductees Chinatown and City Lights.

The 1933 sequel Son of Kong, released the same year, features Denham finding what on Skull Island?

A giant albino gorilla, nicknamed 'Little Kong' and roughly 12 feet tall, befriends Denham on Skull Island and drowns holding him above the waves when the island sinks in an earthquake.

Fay Wray was born on a ranch in which country?

She was born in 1907 on a ranch near Cardston, Alberta, Canada; the family moved to Utah during her childhood and then to Los Angeles, where she began acting in her teens.

A co-director of King Kong (1933) once founded a volunteer air squadron for which country's war against Soviet Russia?

Poland's Kościuszko Squadron, which he co-founded in 1919 to fly for Poland against the Bolsheviks, earned him the Virtuti Militari; he was shot down in 1920 and escaped Soviet captivity in 1921.

The stop-motion animator of the 1933 King Kong won his only Academy Award for which 1949 giant-ape film?

Mighty Joe Young (1949) earned the Academy Award for Best Special Effects; its animator's young assistant on the film was Ray Harryhausen, who did most of the animation.

Which Japanese studio made King Kong vs. Godzilla in 1962?

Toho made King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) after producer John Beck brought it a treatment in which Kong fought a giant Frankenstein monster; the Japanese studio swapped in Godzilla.

In the 1967 Toho and Rankin/Bass film in which the ape escapes, he battles a robotic double called what?

Mechani-Kong, a robot double built by the villain Dr. Who, fights the real Kong atop Tokyo Tower in King Kong Escapes, a spin-off of the animated King Kong Show that premiered in 1966.

The 1976 remake replaced the original film's climactic skyscraper with which then-new landmark?

The World Trade Center's twin towers, then only a few years old, host the remake's finale: Kong leaps from one tower to the other before helicopter gunships shoot him down.

Which producer, famous for lavish spectacles, made the 1976 King Kong?

Dino De Laurentiis, the Italian producer of epics like War and Peace (1956) and Barbarella, hired Lorenzo Semple Jr. to write the remake and released it through Paramount in December 1976.

The 1976 remake launched the film career of which actress, who played the castaway Dwan?

Jessica Lange made her film debut as Dwan and was mocked by some critics for it, but later won Academy Awards for Tootsie (1982) and Blue Sky (1994).

Who wore the ape suit and physically played Kong in the 1976 film, as well as doing its makeup effects?

Rick Baker, later a seven-time Oscar-winning makeup artist, wore the ape suit he helped design for most of Kong's screen time; the 40-foot mechanical Kong barely worked and appears in only a few shots.

In the 1976 version, what kind of company mounts the expedition that discovers Kong's island?

Oil prospectors from the Petrox corporation, led by executive Fred Wilson, sail for an uncharted island hidden under a permanent fog bank hoping to find a huge petroleum deposit.

Besides a Special Achievement Award for effects, how many competitive Oscar nominations did the 1976 King Kong get?

Two competitive nominations followed, for Best Cinematography (Richard H. Kline) and Best Sound, alongside the Special Achievement Award for its visual effects; it won neither competitive category.

Who directed the 2005 remake of King Kong?

Peter Jackson, a lifelong fan of the 1933 original, directed the 2005 remake straight after completing The Lord of the Rings trilogy; his version runs more than three hours.

Who provided the motion-capture performance for Kong in the 2005 film?

Andy Serkis, fresh from playing Gollum, performed Kong through motion capture and also appears on screen as Lumpy, the cook aboard the tramp steamer.

The 2005 King Kong's budget rose during production to roughly what final figure?

The budget reached $207 million, the highest for any film at that point, after extra visual-effects work and a longer running time pushed it past the original $175 million.

The 2005 King Kong won three Academy Awards, for Best Visual Effects and which two others?

Sound Editing and Sound Mixing went to the film at the 2006 ceremony alongside Visual Effects; its remaining nomination, for Art Direction, lost to Memoirs of a Geisha.

The 2005 film's Broadway theatre scenes were shot in Auckland's Civic Theatre and an opera house in which city?

Wellington, home of the Weta effects studios and the production's base for the entire shoot, supplied the second theatre interior; the city had also hosted the Middle-earth films.

Kong: Skull Island (2017) is set in which year?

Set in 1973, just as the US withdraws from Vietnam, it sends a Monarch team and a Sky Devils helicopter squadron to the island; it was the MonsterVerse's second film after Godzilla (2014).

The 2021 MonsterVerse film in which Godzilla and the ape finally fight staged its climactic city battle where?

Hong Kong's neon skyline hosts the final battle, where Godzilla and Kong fight and then team up against Mechagodzilla; Adam Wingard directed the 2021 film.

In Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024), Kong and Godzilla unite against a tyrannical ape called what?

The Skar King rules a tyrannical ape kingdom in the Hollow Earth and enslaves the ice titan Shimo with a crystal whip; Kong picks up the young ape Suko along the way.

In 1982 Universal sued which company, claiming its new arcade ape was a blatant rip-off of King Kong?

Nintendo won: the court found Universal had itself argued in a 1975 case that the King Kong story was in the public domain, and Nintendo was awarded its legal fees.

Which city hosted the 2013 premiere of the King Kong stage musical with its giant puppet?

Melbourne's Regent Theatre staged the premiere in June 2013; the six-metre Kong puppet was built by the Creature Technology Company, and a reworked version reached Broadway in November 2018.

The 2005 King Kong video game was developed by the Montpellier studio of which publisher?

Ubisoft Montpellier, led by Rayman creator Michel Ancel, developed the 2005 tie-in game, which alternates first-person levels as Jack Driscoll with third-person sections playing as Kong.

In the 1933 film, what is the name of the ship Carl Denham charters to reach Skull Island?

The Venture, a tramp steamer skippered by Captain Englehorn, sails from New York with Denham's film crew and an unusually large arsenal, and later carries Kong back in chains.

How is Kong billed to the Broadway audience when Denham unveils him in New York?

Denham presents him as 'King Kong, The Eighth Wonder of the World' before a packed theatre; the press photographers' flashbulbs, which Kong takes as an attack on Ann, set him off.

How does Denham finally subdue Kong on Skull Island so he can be taken to New York?

With a gas bomb thrown on the beach, Denham knocks Kong out after the ape smashes through the great wall's gate and rampages through the village chasing Ann and Jack.

Which actor played Captain Englehorn, skipper of the ship, in the 1933 King Kong?

Frank Reicher, a German-born character actor, played Captain Englehorn, skipper of the tramp steamer; he returned in the same role for Son of Kong later in 1933.

Which dinosaur does Kong kill to save Ann in the 1933 film's most famous fight?

A Tyrannosaurus attacks Ann in the jungle and Kong kills it by prising its jaws apart; the fight was part of the 1932 test reel that sold the studio on the film.

How was Kong's roar created for the 1933 film?

Lion and tiger roars played backward and slowed down were blended by sound man Murray Spivack for the roar; he grunted into a megaphone himself for Kong's softer 'love grunts'.

Who was hired in July 1932 to rewrite the King Kong dialogue, despite never having written a screenplay?

Ruth Rose, Schoedsack's wife and a veteran of their expedition films, rewrote the dialogue to sound like the filmmakers themselves and added Denham's showman bravado; it was her first screenplay.

Which word completes the title of the 1986 sequel to the 1976 remake, 'King Kong ___'?

King Kong Lives (1986) revives the ape with an artificial heart and pairs him with a female 'Lady Kong'; it flopped, and the next Kong feature was the 1998 animated The Mighty Kong.

Which actor plays first mate Jack Driscoll in the 1933 King Kong?

Bruce Cabot played first mate Jack Driscoll, the hero who rescues Ann from Kong's lair; it was an early role for an actor who later became a regular in John Wayne films.

How many biplanes take off to attack Kong atop the Empire State Building in the 1933 film?

Four biplanes scramble to attack him; Driscoll proposes the planes because they can shoot Kong once he sets Ann down, and both directors cameo as the crew of the plane that fells him.