King Kong | movie news and insight

Earlier this week, Apple Computer made it known that it is preparing a major announcement next week, dropping hints of something as critical to the company’s future as the release of the original iPod in 2001.

The company sent an invitation to reporters on Monday morning for a “special event” being held Sept. 7 in San Francisco. “1,000 songs in your pocket changed everything,” the invitation reads, referring to the release of the first 5GB iPod nearly four years ago. “Here we go again.”

Speculation about the mystery announcement has ranged from a much-anticipated iTunes cellphone to an iPod capable of playing videos.

We think the speculators have it all wrong. Given the magnitude of the announcement, we’re thinking it can only mean that Apple is preparing to launch a King Kong branded iPod capable of holding four terabytes of data - that’s 1 million songs.

And, here’s what the big media event will look like:

My wife and I took our son to the Bronx Zoo the other day. Sure, the new Bug Carousel was fun and the giraffes were pretty amazing, but nothing beat the Congo Gorilla Forest - a 6.5 acre African rain forest habitat that includes the largest breeding population of western lowland gorillas in North America.

As you can see in this pic, the gorillas were not afraid to come right up to the glass and my son was completely captivated.

The Sunday Business section of the New York Times features King Kong in a terrific lead story on movie piracy.

Times writer Timothy L. O’Brien says, “even the mighty Kong may not be safe from the clutches of a nebulous, tech-savvy network of film pirates.”

Peter Jackson is quoted in the article as saying, “Piracy has the very real potential of tipping movies into becoming an unprofitable industry, especially big-event films. If that happens, they will stop being made”

In delivering a thorough review of the current state of film piracy around the globe, the article touches on everything from BitTorrent (more than 100,000 people downloaded “War of the Worlds” during the weke of Aug. 9) to $1 million video replicating machines being purchased by Asian-based organized crime groups to the recent Supreme Court decision involving Grokster.

Empire Magazine has King Kong on the cover this month with some exclusive info.


a sneak peak inside the magazine.

Empire Online writes that “This is the first time that an Empire cover has been entirely created inside a computer … and frankly we’re going to computer generate all our cover stars in future if they look this good.”

If any of our readers in the UK have received it, please let us know & feel free to share the details in the comment section.

Had a quick email exchange with Craig Robinson, the creator of the very cool minipops – mini pixilated renditions of famous celebrities.

Can you guess what minipop this is?

How about this?

Anyway, it was just announced that Robinson’s minipops will be at the heart of the ad creative for Yahoo Music’s upcoming media blitz promoting its subscription music service. Talk about endorsement deals!

I had noticed that King Kong was quite conspicuously missing from his huge collection of minipops, most of which are based on music, film and TV icons.

So, I shot Craig an email asking when we might see a Kong minipop. Much to my surprise, I received a near-immediate response from him (from Berlin I must add) in which he said that I had read his mind and a Kong minipop was near the top of his to-do list.

Can’t wait to see what he comes up with - the giant ape should make the ultimate minipop.

ITConversations has a great audio interview with Mark Cotta Vaz, the author of “Living Dangerously — The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong.”

The book, which just came out this month, is a biography of film pioneer Cooper (1893–1973), producer-director of the original 1933 King Kong. Peter Jackson wrote the forward to the book. In the interview, Vaz offers up some nice behind-the-scenes details on how Cooper made the original Kong - its definitely worth listening to (audio quality is great).

Our readers have spoken ! The 1962 King Kong vs Godzilla is the winner. Here are the rest of the results:

# King Kong 1933: 30%
# King Kong 1976: 13%
# Mighty Joe Young 1949: 11%
# King Kong Lives 1986: 11%

Also, please take a moment to vote on our newest poll: Can King Kong save Hollywood? CNN Money is running an article about the lackluster summer box office and wondering if Kong “can lead a box office comeback after a rough summer.”.

According to eurogame.net:

“At a press and retail event in the UK last week, Ubisoft outlined its plans for Christmas 2005 and confirmed that both Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter and Peter Jackson’s King Kong would be released to coincide with the launch of Xbox 360 toward the end of November.”

The New Yorker, which arguably comes up with the best looking, most creative covers of any magazine, has two King Kong covers that are worth checking out.

The August 1, 2005 cover, which shows Kong dowsing New Yorkers with a giant Super Soaker, was a really fun way to convey the magnitude of the heat wave that had hit the City that week.

Both of these covers, along with several classic King Kong-related cartoons are available for sale at the New Yorker’s terrific online store.

Gotta see this! On potoshopcontest.com, someone created a really cool photoshop of Kong on top of a hotel. The author definitely has talent.