Congo (1995) – WTF Happened to This Adaptation?

Last Updated on August 30, 2024

We talk a lot about the top of the pile when discussing horror novels and novelists. Obviously, the top of that pile is a certain man by the name of Stephen King. However, if you were going to have a Mount Rushmore of authors with him, I’m throwing the great Michael Crichton up there with him in one of the other 3 spots. Yeah, I know he’s not known as a hardcore horror guy, or even really a horror guy at all, I know for a fact his most well-known work Jurassic Park scared the bejesus out of a whole generation of kids. For that matter, I showed that movie to my kids as their first entryway into horror. While I’ll probably tackle Jurassic Park at some point as it is vastly different from book to movie, let me know in the comments if you guys want that, but today I wanted to cover a lesser-known work from the author. Congo came out after Jurassic Park and probably was possible in huge part because of how crazy big that amusement park disaster piece was but how close did the movie follow the book? Learn some sign language and stop eating that sesame cake as we look at what happened to this adaptation.

The Movie

Congo was originally supposed to be put into production and come out in the early 80s. Crichton was very interested in making a modern-day version of King Solomon’s Mines which was one of his favorite books by an author named H Rider Haggard. While there had been movies in the past, there hadn’t been one in a while. He actually sold the rights before writing the book to Frank Yablans and 20th century Fox who paid him an advance for the book, screenplay, and directorial duties. He really wanted Sean Connery to star in it after having a great time working with him on Murder on the Orient Express a few years earlier. One of the reasons it stalled at that point was because Crichton wanted a real gorilla to be featured and the studio wouldn’t go for that. It would be passed around into the late 80s to people like Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter but nothing would come of it. The property was turned into an early computer game in the 80s for the Apple II among others but because he had sold ALL the rights to the book, the name of the game was changed from Congo to Amazon. An additional nugget about this is that Crichton himself knew how to code and helped with the game. It would go on to be a huge seller for Telarrium and Amy the Gorilla would become Paco the Parrot. It’s obviously freeware now so go check it out on your emulator of choice!

After the massive success of Jurassic Park, the idea to make the movie would come back up and Frank Marshall would be shown the property by his wife and decide to take it on. Marshall has also directed things like Arachnophobia and Alive but is also a 5-time Oscar nominee for his part in producing many more projects. Crichton, and accomplished screenwriter himself had nothing to do with the screenplay here and instead that fell to John Patrick Shanley. The name may not jump out to you, but he is an Oscar winner for Moonstruck and an Oscar Nominee for Doubt. In addition to that, he also wrote Joe vs the Volcano and Alive for Frank Marshall. In front of the screen has talent in main roles from Laura Linney, Ernie Hudson, Tim Curry, and Dylan Walsh while also having a who’s who of supporting roles from James Karen, Joe Pantoliano, Bruce Campbell, John Hawkes, Joe Don Baker, and Delroy Lindo.

Bruce Campbell went for the lead role but just like in Darkman, would have to settle for a much smaller appearance. Reese Witherspoon, Diane Keaton, Geena Davis, and Susan Sarandon were all up for Dr. Karen Ross while Kim Basinger and Carol Kane were considered for the voice of Amy. Warren Beatty and Tim Allen were both considered for the role of Monroe which would eventually go to Ernie Hudson and end up being his personal favorite role. The movie was released by paramount in the summer of 1995 on June 9th to not great reviews. Reviews don’t tell the whole story though as the movie was a huge success with a total box office take of 152 million on its 50-million-dollar budget. It would get a released video game on the Sega Saturn that was an exploratory first-person shooter and an unreleased game for the 16-bit generation of Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo that kind of looks like the Sega Genesis Jurassic Park game.

The Book

Congo was a big deal before it was even released as studio bid on it to turn it into a movie before writing even began. That’s because Michael Crichton had already been writing for 15 years. The guy was sort of a renaissance man with being a graduate of Harvard with a degree in biological anthropology and late being a guest lecturer at Cambridge. He learned how to code BASIC which allowed him to program his own game based on today’s book and wrote his first novel while at Harvard Medical school at the age of 23. That book was called Odds On and he wrote it and had it published under the pseudonym John Lange which was a take on famous anthropologist Andrew Lange. The book became popular enough to sell the film rights in 1969 but no movie would come from it sadly.

While in medical school he realized that writing was his true passion and that he was good enough for that to sustain him with books still being published under his Lange nom de plume and he started reviewing books under his real name. 1969 would give us the first Crichton published book with The Andromeda Strain which was a mega hit and get turned into a feature film. He would go on to write short stories, fiction, non-fiction, put collections together, and become an accomplished writer and director in his own right with one of my personal favorites being the 1973 movie Westworld with Yul Brunner and James Brolin that has obvious inspirations for the Terminator. Well, that and Harlan Ellison’s Soldier from Tomorrow but in any case, Crichton was a true original that could do anything he wanted.

While Congo is considered a lesser adaptation of his work, he has quite a few that will live on in perpetuity and continue to get made and remade as time goes on. He passed away in 2008 but his legacy will live on for generations with Jurassic Park alone. Seek out the rest of his stuff both in the literary world and on screen as it’s always interesting and entertaining.

What is the Same?

Congo follows an expedition but a large company that is looking to find gemstones in the Congo to help with their technology. The original expedition is wrecked by what we eventually see is a type of aggressive gorilla and a second expedition is sent out to find them. This is led by Karen Ross who also brings along with her animal trainer Peter Elliot and his sign language trained gorilla Amy. They also meet up with a famous mercenary named Munroe. They run into multiple dangerous elements including weather, plane crashes, dangerous animals, and a civil war in the country that causes political strife and difficulties in navigating to where they need to go.

Eventually the group makes it to the old camp where there are no survivors. They are attacked by a large group of hyper aggressive gorillas and are able to defend themselves while killing many of the animals. They find the lost city of Zinj where the diamonds are located and discover that the tribe of this area actually bred these gorillas into something different to protect them and the city, but something went wrong. Inside the volcano they find the diamond deposit but are attacked by the guardian killer apes and escape after a battle and some help from Amy. Even though the 3 main characters make it out alive, several other members of the team do not, and the volcano erupts which buries all of the diamonds, city, and race of gorillas forever. The characters were aiming to “put ’em on the endangered species list,” and more than succeeded. The survivors escape in a hot air balloon while Amy gets to be among her fellow normal gorillas where she will undoubtedly teach them sign language.

What is different?

There are a handful of little things that are different like the name of Monroe being Charles Monroe in the book and Monroe Kelly in the movie as well as him being a white guy in the book and, well, Ernie Hudson in the movie. It works well and he even has a line about being the great white hunter, but black which is awesome. The names of the science companies are different as well with it being ERTS in the book and Travicom in the movie. Technology also changes from the 15-year gap between book and movie with the books purpose of the diamonds being for processor chips and the movie making it about satellites. Crichton’s penchant for science jargon is much more prevalent in the book too but that’s probably because he had nothing to do with the final movie product. I call it jargon but after learning more about the man, he knew what he was talking about. Finally, since the technology didn’t exist in 1979, Amy the gorilla only uses sign language in the book instead of the electronic interpreter glove of the movie.

Some of the more major differences from book to screen are the genesis of the diamond gorillas. In the movie they are just hyper aggressive and bred to protect but the book has a whole autopsy scene where the group discovers that the gorillas are mixed with both human and chimpanzee DNA which makes them different and dangerous. The group that goes on the expedition isn’t alone in the book either. It’s a race between different companies from across the world that are after the diamonds and because of all the issues, its ERTS that gets there last and the balloon they all escape in is found from one of the other groups wreckage. Finally, and the thing that almost gives the movie the edge alone, is the Tim Curry factor. His character of the treasure hunting fake philanthropist Herkermer Homolka doesn’t exist at all in the book. He’s a minor villain and he and Bruce Campbell appearing in the movie are a huge win. Curry has an awesome look and accent to him and is just a fun character. While he doesn’t have anything as great as his quote from command and conquer, Mike please hit us with some Tim Curry space, he does add so much, and the movie would suffer greatly without him. There is also an epilogue in the book that tells us Monroe saved over 30 gems and sells them to intel while an angry Karen Ross from the movie throws the only one she saved from using her BFG out of the hot air balloon.

Legacy

The book is better. I had a good time with the movie, in fact better than I expected to having not seen it in over 20 years, but the book is superior. I’ll still say watch the movie for the really fun cast, particularly Tim Curry, but the book is one of the easier reads from one of our most underrated sci-fi and horror elements writers.

A couple of the previous episodes of WTF Happened to This Adaptation? can be seen below. To see the other shows we have to offer, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!