Denis Edwards: Kong flop could prove positive

We hear that New York went mad over King Kong. I doubt it. Having lived in that city, albeit briefly, and through its weekly sensations, it is obvious it takes more than a movie to really wake the city that never sleeps.

More likely the ones going truly mad over King Kong are its New York-based publicists.

If Peter Jackson's giant does not deliver giant returns, and quickly, we may find we are at an interesting moment -as in the ancient curse, "May you live in interesting times", with interesting reading as horrible.

King Kong is no certainty to avoid falling from the Empire State Building into the river of red ink.

It is higher risk than The Lord of the Rings. While Rings had been attempted before it had nothing like the ape's profile as either icon or earner.

It comes topped up with dinosaurs, bringing comparison with Jurassic Park, but the gorilla doesn't show up accompanied by the legions of cult-like Tolkien devotees.

That three-hour running time could matter. If it could have been done in two, with the rest as indulgent bloat - and this happens, witness The Constant Gardener - then the interesting times may roll.

This country, and probably Peter Jackson, will be off Hollywood's speed dials within the hour, especially as no one need put up with trying to move large files on our skimpy broadband any more.

Jackson himself would re-surface. He has talent and he has the experience, having donned the sackcloth and shuffled into the dungeons for a suitable period of repentance after his Michael J. Fox vehicle, The Frighteners, hit the iceberg.

While no one, except the truly jealous, would wish failure on Jackson, something less than a raging success might be, dare we say it, "interesting" - only in a more positive way.

The infrastructure built by Rings and Kong will still be here, and with the Californians moving to bring home runaway productions through tax penalties, we may have to look to ourselves.

Instead of living off Hollywood's waifs and strays, the No 8 wire mentality will need to surface and more home-grown product emerge from the House of Rings/Kong.

This may be a few steps to creating an industry rather than a series of two-year marquee events based around one person, and inch us along to that which the Australians are developing - a wide and broad industry of their own.

Jurassic Park's Steven Spielberg continues to make his movies, and his upcoming Munich is threatening to wipe both Harry Potter and King Kong from the money charts.

Spielberg also executive-produces other films, helping to create that broader-based industry we need a lot more than his Hollywood does.

* Denis Edwards is a novelist and playwright and past president of the New Zealand Writers Guild.