The king of KING KONG

By: Patrick Sauriol
Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Source: Variety

The director of the popular and profitable LORD OF THE RINGS movies is starting to see some sweet fruit bear from all of his hard work. Peter Jackson will get paid a whopping $20 million dollars against 20% of the grosses from Universal Pictures' KING KONG picture. The $20 M upfront also gets paid in part to Jackson's co-writers on KONG and the RINGS trilogy, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens.

The deal is contingent on Jackson delivering KING KONG to Universal at an agreed upon budget price. The film will be shot in New Zealand and is now targeted for a Christmas 2005 release frame.

The first two LORD OF THE RINGS movies have earned nearly $2 billion dollars at the box office worldwide, and that's not even counting home video revenue. Jackson wrote an earlier version of KING KONG for Universal back in 1997 only to have the studio pass on remaking the movie. The original KONG is one of Jackson's all-time favorite films and getting the opportunity to tell his version of the story (set in the same time period as the original movie, the 1930s) has been a dream of the director for years.


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