Kong remake life long labour of love for Jackson

Naomi Watts and Peter Jackson with a Kong figurine he made as a child. Picture / Mark Mitchell

Peter Jackson's first attempt at a remake of his favourite film King Kong was as a 12-year-old, when he nicked his mother's fur stole to make the model.

At a press conference in Wellington this afternoon the director showed off a 20cm model of Kong he made for his first attempt the remake the classic 32 years earlier.

Jackson passed the ape made of wire and strips cut from his mothers stole among cast members of the movie who were gathered.

"I was 12-years-old and I'd never seen her wear it, so I figured she didn't want it anymore," Jackson said, exhibiting he had the single-minded focus necessary to become a brilliant filmmaker even then.

To the applause of assembled media, he then produced the original model itself - a slightly threadbare but convincing little ape - and passed it around the cast.
Naomi Watts, who plays Kong love interest Ann Darrow in the film, said it was good to hold Kong in her hand for a change.

Jackson's first grown up attempt at the remake was thwarted in 1996 - before The Lord of the Rings trilogy - when he and long-time co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens along with model maker Richard Taylor spent six or seven "intense" months working on the project, before it was pulled by Universal Pictures.

"That was a terrible moment in time," he admitted.

But on the other hand, the movie would have been entirely different if they had made it then.

"The draft of the script was very Hollywood, a real action adventure, and quite light weight, a very different tone."

A regime change at the studio caused the project to be resurrected.

Jackson said he agreed to do it if he and his team were allowed to rewrite the script and set it in 1933, when the original was released.

His 2005 realisation of the giant ape was far removed from his childhood model and more realistic than the 1933 man in a gorilla suit.

His Kong was created to look 7.62m high and weigh 3700kg.

Even though the filmmakers had The Lord of the Rings trilogy under their belts, it was still difficult work for the Oscar winners.

"Sometimes the shooting of it is extremely arduous, because it's not an exact science," Jackson said.

He described a scene where Kong was fighting off a dinosaur while trying to keep hold of heroine Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), and stuntmen in blue suits - who would be obscured during editing - picked her up and shook her around.

"I'd just say OK 'shake her around' and we'd roll two or three cameras...we would do these two minute-long takes of just chucking her around and somewhere in there we would find the two seconds we wanted in the movie."

Audience and reviewer reaction so far had labelled King Kong as a fantasy movie with a big heart.

Jackson agreed it was the emotion in the movie - revealing a complex Kong that showed a tender side - that set it apart from other movies of the monster genre.

Kong also revealed human failings.

"It wasn't just about being empathetic towards Kong, it was the realisation of what human beings do to the great things of nature. We exploit them and sometimes destroy them," Jackson said.

Over the past 10 days, Jackson and his team of talent have been to the world premiere in New York on December 5, then on to London, Paris, Berlin and Tokyo for more premieres.

Jackson was amused when watching the movie overseas.

"When you are watching it in New York, London and Berlin and these places it's like they're watching Skull Island and I know they are really watching Miramar, and they're watching New York and Times Square and all these big streets and it's really Lower Hutt."

After working so hard for the past eight years, Jackson said he was looking forward to "a bit of a break" before going on to smaller movie projects.

New Zealand was the last stop for the Kong premieres, but the cast still had plenty of energy for the finale.

Actor Colin Hanks, who played cynical moviemaker Carl Denham's long-suffering assistant Preston, said the Wellington premiere was very special.

"This is the big one. This is where we made the movie. There's two experiences...there's the experience of making it and then when it's out.

"This is the best way to end the experience - here in Wellington on the day that the movie comes out across the world - there's no other place that any of us would rather be."

Jamie Bell, who played Jimmy, said: "Absolutely, positively Wellington," as the others laughed.

Watts said it was bittersweet, because it was the last stop.

"We had this great experience collectively in making it ... and now it's the last stop. You have to let go now, it's kind of sad."

Jackson's US$207 million ($296 million) three-hour epic will have its New Zealand premiere at The Embassy Theatre in Wellington at 7pm.

- NZPA