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Shooting three massive movies simultaneously wasn’t just a mammoth undertaking for Peter Jackson; it was a colossal risk. JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings had been branded unfilmable for decades, and if he didn’t pull it off, then everybody involved stood to take a substantial hit to their bottom lines and reputations.
Of course, the trilogy emerged on the other side as a monumental achievement in cinema, revitalising epic fantasy on the silver screen and taking the world by storm. By the time the dust had settled, The Lord of the Rings was basking in the warm glow of almost $3 billion in ticket sales and a collective haul of 17 Academy Awards from 30 nominations.
For many, the Middle-Earth triptych will always define Jackson as a filmmaker, but it wasn’t his most personal project. Instead, that honour falls to 2005’s King Kong. Why did he opt to remake a classic creature feature as his first port of call and maiden wielding of his newfound clout, especially when the 1976 version received a less than stellar response?
The short version is because it’s his favourite film of all time and, of course, because he could. Jackson admitted that he made it for entirely selfish reasons, adding some new creative flourishes to the story to expand the 100-minute original into a 192-minute extravaganza that utilised cutting-edge visual effects and slathered the nostalgia on thick.
Jackson couldn’t resist the opportunity to remake King Kong when it was feasibly on the table, more than a decade after he’d first floated the idea. “It was a childhood dream on one level, and I also felt that I had something to offer to the legend of Kong,” he shared. “A lot of young people out there were never, ever going to watch the black and white version.”
Jackson has long been a self-proclaimed movie geek, obsessed with crafting the ultimate Hollywood blockbuster. Remaking King Kong wasn’t just about ambition; it was about indulging his inner child. “I try to be selfish,” he confessed to Rolling Stone. “This is a remake of Kong that I’d like to go see.”
He’s always been an avid film enthusiast, with the original King Kong holding a special place as his favourite movie. At around nine years old, he even tried to recreate it using his own stop-motion models. For Jackson, the remake wasn’t about winning awards or critical acclaim; it was a passion project. The legendary ape had captured his imagination since he was a boy, and the chance to reimagine the 1933 classic was irresistible.
While The Lord of the Rings was a global sensation, King Kong was Jackson’s personal love letter to cinema, crafted to satisfy the movie buff within him.
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