I had my issues with Legendary Pictures' 2014 GODZILLA film (it lost to CLOVERFIELD in a recent Face-Off), but that has no effect on the high level of anticipation I have as I look forward to seeing their take on King Kong with KONG: SKULL ISLAND.
The project is shrouded in secrecy, and all we know about it is that it may be set in the 1970s and that the screenplay by Max Borenstein, John Gatins, Derek Connolly, and Dan Gilroy follows
a team of explorers venturing on an island inhabited by monsters.
Tom Hiddleston, who co-stars in KONG with Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly, Tom Wilkinson, Thomas Mann, John Ortiz, Shea Whigham, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, and Will Brittain, stopped by Entertainment Weekly Radio and during his conversation with the hosts discussed how excited he is to be sharing the screen with Kong, "the biggest movie star in the history of movies", and the experience of making the film, while heaping some praise on it.
Jordan Vogt-Roberts, who directed it, had this extraordinary idea. I don’t want to spoil too much… But it’s a whole new re-conception of the mythology. It essentially follows a group of disparate travelers and explorers and soldiers who travel to an undiscovered island in the South Pacific. And it’s set in a time period where you could conceive that there are still undiscovered places on the earth. What they find on the island is surprising, and then every character has a very different response to it. It’s going to be spectacular and epic, but also the human drama is kind of interesting as well."
Hiddleston described the cast as "maybe the most diverse and talented" he has ever worked with, and mentioned that the jungle of Skull Island will be brought to the screen through a mixture of footage filmed in Hawaii, Australia, and Vietnam.
This all sounds very promising to me, and I will definitely be at the theatre to watch KONG: SKULL ISLAND when it's released on March 10, 2017. Less than a year left to wait!
This film shares a universe with Legendary's GODZILLA. Its release will be followed by GODZILLA 2 on June 8, 2018, and then the crossover rematch GODZILLA VS. KONG in 2020.
Brie Larson and the Oscar she won for ROOM