King Kong | movie news and insight

King Kong has made in appearance in the unlikeliest of places - the cover of The Economist.

The venerable British news and business publication is running a feature story about Big Media’s struggle with the digital world - arguing that ViacomDisneyTimeWarnerFoxNBCUniversal… will overcome the threat as they will eventually figure out how to fully capitalize on the promise of the web.

The article begins: “’PAIN is temporary, film is forever.’ That hopeful thought, which found its way into the original script of Peter Jackson’s recent re-make of King Kong, might be seized upon by today’s beleaguered entertainment industry.”

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According to boxofficemojo, King Kong fell to the number seven spot at the weekend box office, grossing roughly $7.5 million. That brings its cumulative domestic box office to nearly $203 million.

Narnia had clearly won the battle of the big budget holiday fantasy flicks, as it remained in the top 5 (at number 4) this weekend grossing more than $10 million ($261.2 million domestic to date).

Still, King Kong has taken in $476.5 million worldwide since it opened in mid-December. Not too shabby.

Like many movies before it, King Kong is shaping some of the latest fashion trends.

In today’s Sunday Times, Tony Allen writes that:

FORGET the camisole, the bustier and all the other bits of exotic underwear that have lately become more familiar as women’s skimpy outerwear. The hot international fashion trend for summer this year is likely to be the petticoat.

Several decades after the fashion world’s least fashionable undergarment appeared to vanish from boutique racks, a giant gorilla and his female sidekick are helping to spur a comeback.

not only that …

Fashion gurus have lined up to predict that women tired of the tacky excesses of Madonna-style bras and bustiers would soon be gratefully turning to what one retail executive described as “the new pristine version of sexiness”.

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King Kong’s box office take this weekend fell by 50% to $12.5 million, leaving it behind ‘The Chronicles of Narnia,’ which brought in $15.4 million, and a little horror flick called ‘Hostel,’ which captured the number one spot bringing in an impressive $20.1 million. This was reported by boxofficemojo.com.

‘Hostel,’ which cost only $4.8 million to make, is about young Americans who become unwilling subjects of a pay-to-torture service during a pleasure trip to Europe.

King Kong’s domestic box office now stands at $192.5 million, leaving it in a good position to top the $200 million mark by the end of the week.

As of this morning, 44 different mistakes that apparently crop up in King Kong have been identified on MovieMistakes.com.

Most of the reported mistakes appear to be fairly innocuous ‘continuity mistakes (”When Ann meets Kong on NYC street, the camera flashes back and forth between them. When it shows Kong, he is surrounded by snow, but when it shows Ann, the street doesn’t have so much as a snowflake”), rather than factual errors. Seems like a significant number, however, given how much time Peter Jackson reportedly spent in the editing room.

Our friends over at HDTV Xbox 360 have confirmed first hand that Ubisoft made the King Kong game too dark for those with non-HDTV sets. The problem seems to stem from that fact that all the game developers tested and built the game while running HD televisions. So for those who have a choice of console version and still don’t have an HDTV, you may want to pickup the PS2 or original Xbox version.

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Interesting story over on CNN.com discussing how “Fictional King Kong mirrors odd island facts”. The basic idea being that animals on remote islands can evolve into massive versions of their mainland kin. Sue Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist and director of the global species program for WWF International makes the case: “There is evidence that this happens because of isolation and a lack of competition … the further an island is from the mainland the more potential there is for the evolution of new species,” she told Reuters by telephone from Rome.

The article goes on to say: “There are many examples of what biologists term ‘gigantism’ on islands. These include the Komodo dragons, the world’s largest lizards which can be 10 feet long or more and weigh up to 500 pounds. Found on a few small Indonesian islands, the Komodo — a recorded man-eater — is in many ways as chilling as anything from Jackson’s fertile imagination.”

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The New York Daily News reports that “King Kong” apparently fell from the top of the box office on the last weekend of 2005, a victim this time of a noble lion rather than those pesky airplanes.

Estimates from Friday and Saturday showed “The Chronicles of Narnia,” edging ahead of “King Kong.”

“Narnia” reportedly took in $17.2 million Friday and Saturday to $15.6 million for “Kong,” which had ruled the box office since its release two weekends ago.

“Narnia” passed $200 million at the box office over the weekend and “Kong” passed $150million.