King Kong makes his comeback

Eighty years after its debut in theaters, the huge prehistoric gorilla King Kong makes his return, more fit than ever and always with a little weak for the pretty blondes in distress, in Kong: Skull Island .

The film, which comes out on Friday, should be a success in theaters because it appeals to a very large fan base, conquered over the different opus around the great ape who have made it an icon of cinema.

“Since the classic version of King Kong in 1933, with Fay Wray, this tale of the beautiful and the beast fascinates the public and continues to inspire filmmakers over the decades,” notes Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst at comScore.

“Even if superheroes seem to rule the Earth, monsters movies will always have a place in the hearts of the public and this new version should benefit from this interest,” he predicts again to AFP.

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, a newcomer to the major studios, King Kong’s latest addition is Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleton, Brie Larson and John Goodman.

The action is in 1973 with the end of the American engagement in Vietnam, when the explorer Bill Randa (John Goodman) persuades a senator to let him assemble a team to study the seismology of a mysterious island isolated from the Pacific, Made difficult to access due to storms.

Or when Jurassic World meets Apocalypse Now , Randa’s military escort does not lace in front of the monkey king and a whole panoply of other scary monsters.

Ruthless Predators

The team also includes a mercenary, Captain James Conrad (Tom Hiddleton) and courageous pacifist photographer Mason Weaver, camped by Brie Larson for his first role since his Oscar-winning performance in Room .

The dose of humor is brought by John C. Reilly, who plays the former World War II pilot Hank Marlow, lost on this island for 29 years and half crazy.

But the island is far from being deserted and King Kong shares his piece of land with vicious creatures, giant lizard types that hide but reappear regularly to sow death and chaos among human communities.

On the canopy is a spider the size of a car, surrounded by birds with sharp beak, not to mention other ruthless predators, including a giant octopus.

The original King Kong had been a huge success and remains, according to the Rotten Tomatoes website, one of the most noted horror movies of all time.

The son of Kong , released nine months later, however flop and two other sequels, commercially very profitable, had been greeted freshly by criticism. This is a 1976 version with Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange, as well as another special effects orgy dating from 2005, with Peter Jackson on the controls.

30 meters high

On the side of the “cousins” of the original version, the cult Japanese-American film King Kong against Godzilla (1962), the least popular The revenge of King Kong (1967) and the flop King Kong II (1986) have met heterogeneous successes .

“Even if the monsters ‘movies have not yet made a definitive comeback, the appeal of King Kong this time seems driven by fans’ interest in an adventure film with more action, lighter than the previous ones Versions, “said Shawn Robbins, an analyst at BoxOffice.com.

Filmed in Hawaii, Vietnam and Australia on the Gold Coast, Skull Island features a 30-meter-high King Kong biped, patrolling its territory as a colossal human being, in contrast to its predecessor of 2005 which only Seven meters high.

The film should have been produced by Universal but in 2015 the studio had announced that it was finally leaving the field free to Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros., who planned a Godzilla vs. Kong for 2020.

King Kong could in any case accumulate 50 million dollars this weekend for his exit in North America, and to precede Hugh Jackman, which endorses one last time the costume of Wolverine in Logan . The ape might bring in more than $ 500 million in total.