Peter Jackson’s new version of King Kong is being praised by primate advocates. A reader sent us this:
Why ‘King Kong’ speaks our language
With Peter Jackson’s remake of King Kong hitting theaters this month, and its amazing special effects that required no real apes, primate advocates have created a spoof targeting Hollywood’s use of great ape “actors.”
It’s part of the No Reel Apes campaign to end the use of great apes in entertainment. Many of you are aware of the trauma and mistreatment young chimpanzees and other great apes suffer in productions, but most people are not aware.
Spread the word: tell people that babies and young apes are used in movies and on TV — after being forced away from their mothers — because adolescents and adults are much too strong to handle. These older apes usually are “retired” to deplorable conditions. Often they spend decades in isolation — totally alone. (See “Where are they now?”)
These are some of the reasons that Dr. Goodall and the Jane Goodall Institute, the Doris Day Animal Foundation, The Humane Society of the United States, and Hollywood professionals are challenging the Motion Picture Association of America to make great movies without great apes.
And, indeed, primate advocates should be particularly pleased because the advance buzz on this film is that it is going to be a MONSTER hit. The New York Daily News’ Jack Mathews:
In assessing this year’s Oscar race last month, I wrote that if Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” turns out as well as his three “Lord of the Rings” movies, you can count it in as a Best Picture nominee.
I should have been more optimistic.
Now that I’ve seen it, the question is whether it can top 1997’s “Titanic” as the highest-grossing movie of all time.
The short answer is, probably not. “Titanic’s” box-office performance is in an orbit of its own. It sold $600.8 million worth of tickets at home — $140 million more than No. 2 “Star Wars” — and $1.8 billion worldwide, more than $700million better than the last “Lord of the Rings” episode.
But “Kong” is the first film to come along in years with at least a shot at the No. 1 spot.
“The pedigree of the filmmaker and the scope and breadth of ‘Kong’ lead me to believe it’s the first movie that could remotely challenge ‘Titanic’ in cultural and box-office impact,” says Paul Dergarabedian, president of the theater trend-watching Exhibitor Relations Inc.
“Kong,” which opens nationally next Wednesday, is as good a movie as “Titanic,” and it would seem to have a broader audience.
And expect the promo for the film to be Kongian. Just look at the premier as reported by the LA Times:
The star of “King Kong” is very large. The premiere of Peter Jackson’s new film was even larger.
Universal Pictures filled no fewer than 38 Times Square movie theaters Monday night as it unveiled “King Kong” for nearly 8,000 people. Jackson introduced his $220-million film — Screen 13 at the Loews E-Walk was the A-list auditorium — while clutching the metal frame used to create Kong in the original 1933 film…..
,..With an obviously biased audience, which included Donald Trump, George Lucas, Glenn Close, actor-comedian Richard Belzer and Fay Wray’s daughter and son-in-law, Victoria Riskin and David Rintels, the word was uniformly enthusiastic, with many guests sobbing at the film’s conclusion. Through their tears, however, some spotted Jackson in a cameo as one of the pilots buzzing Kong in the final scene.
More than ever, digital special effects are making the use of real animals (and perhaps real people) less necessary….
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.