Stars join Jackson to mark beginning of production

By COLIN MARSHALL

The stars of Peter Jackson's latest movie had many reasons for wanting to play their parts in King Kong but on one thing they were unanimous - it was a desire to work with Jackson that brought them to New Zealand.

Filming for the blockbuster remake of the 1933 classic starts on Monday in Jackson's studios in the Wellington suburb of Miramar.

The movie is scheduled for release in December, 2005.

Flanked by stars Adrien Brody, Naomi Watts and Jack Black, Jackson told reporters in Miramar today he didn't expect his actors to "carbon-copy" the characters of the original film, promising an updated take on the original black-and-white production.

Jackson was playing his cards close to his chest on what cinema-goers could expect in his new adaptation, but promised not to "bend over backwards" and transform it into a politically-correct film for the 21st century.

Jackson promised a visually stunning movie but showed he'd been thinking deeply about the inner-Kong.

"We're really just attempting to make a wonderful mysterious adventure film. At the end of the day it's about gorillas, it's about dinosaurs and lost islands," he said.

"Our King Kong is very battered, he's very ancient, he's the last of his particular race on this island. He did have a mother and father but they're now dead and there are no more after him. He's the final survivor and he's a very old gorilla.

"He has never felt a single bit of empathy for a living creature in his long life."

Jackson said the movie's characters would be changed and adapted and even melded together - Brody's character in the original film was the first mate of the ship whereas in the new film he's become the screenwriter of a "movie" being shot on Skull Island.


"The characters came first and then we just really wanted to find the very best actors in the world that we could find that would fit the characters that we were imagining in our heads," said Jackson.

For his three leads, Jackson sought out Academy Award winner Brody (The Pianist) as Jack Driscoll, Academy Award nominee Australian Watts as the iconic and, at least in 1933, screaming Ann Darrow, and School of Rock star Black as film maker Carl Denham.

Brody said the decision to come to New Zealand had been simple.

"It's pretty obvious why I would be here. I mean I've been a fan of Peter's work."

Watts, who later declined to scream for the cameras, a la Fay Wray 1933, sided with Brody, having agreed to play Ann before the script was even written.

"The first thing is the director. Having seen most of Peter's work, I know when I got the call to come and meet it was hugely exciting."

Black, 35 last weekend, was a little more off-beat.

"This has been kind of an amazing dream for me because I was such a huge fan of Peter's films, Peter and Fran (Walsh, Jackson's partner) - the dream team.

"I remember thinking to myself while I was watching Lord of the Rings, 'man I have got to get an audition for whatever he does next!"'

The call from Jackson duly came.

"That's one of the calls you wait your whole life to get a call like that. And then it was like, 'don't blow it buddy'."

Jackson said it was a long-held dream of his to make King Kong, first as a young boy with a Super-8 camera watching the film then in 1996 before Lord of the Rings took off.

He said the film would be shot in standard 35mm film, not digital, and not in 3-D, although he had thought about it before deciding the technology was too great a jump along with the other pressures of shooting.

- NZPA