King Kong is one of the mythical figures of adventure cinema and one of the icons of popular culture. The success of the original 1933 film and its legacy has allowed this giant ape to continue being one of Hollywood's main bets, as well reflected in Peter Jackson 's remake or the cinematographic universe that makes up titles such as Kong: Skull Island or Godzilla and Kong: The New Empire . However, the prestige of this creature has not always stood tall, since a controversial decision in the 1930s ruined its future in cinema for many years.
It all has to do with the way RKO , the classic Hollywood studio behind King Kong, handled the success of the first film. The company, to which we also owe classics like Citizen Kane or It's a Wonderful Life! , was not going through a good economic time and was facing a reputation crisis due to a lack of quality in its titles. Acclaimed releases such as Glory of a Day or The Four Little Sisters , both starring Katherine Hepburn , helped calm the waters, although it was the success of King Kong that gave them the key to salvation.
Upon its release on March 2, 1933, it grossed more than $10 million at the box office against a production cost of only $670,000 (via Heritage Auctions ). This led to stratospheric profits as the idea arose of turning King Kong into an adventure franchise, like other successes of those years such as Johnny Weissmuller 's Tarzan . However, they jumped into the pool too soon.
They did not wait even a year to develop these plans, since RKO set the release date of the King Kong sequel for Christmas 1933, that is, only nine months after the debut of the original. Obviously, getting a big production off the ground in such a short time is an impossible mission, so the project, which was titled Son of Kong , had to deal with a lower budget, a tight shooting schedule, recycled special effects and a script without Polish .
In the film we were presented with another adventure in which Carl Denham, the explorer played by Robert Armstrong in the previous film, organizes another expedition to Skull Island in search of new discoveries. There he will discover Kong's son, a white gorilla who will soon sympathize with them and help them overcome the new dangers of the place.
It was once again an entertaining adventure film but its shortcomings were too exaggerated to be overlooked , especially in comparison to what the original film offered. Its duration lasted just over an hour, to which we must add that, for obvious reasons of budget cuts, the characters do not visit Skull Island until approximately halfway through the film. Furthermore, although we once again find interesting sequences with the charm of stop-motion special effects, they were much more limited, they reused too many resources from their predecessor and passed on the screen without pain or glory through a very poor plot.
As a consequence, Son of Kong fell far short of the quality of King Kong and poisoned the legacy of the 1933 classic . In the same year that critics and the public surrendered to the giant ape, he began to arouse mixed and cold reactions due to the unnecessary rush of his studio to obtain quick and easy money. For example,Variety, in its original review, pointed out this decadence in the footage and special effects and spoke of “fair entertainment.” The same thing stood out The New York Times, which spoke of its low quality in the drama compared to the original, highlighting its more comical aspect.
King Kong disappeared from Hollywood
The result was an irremediable loss of interest in the character, so RKO's initial plans to develop a franchise vanished. In fact, the negativity around this project was such that Hollywood did not trust King Kong again until the 1970s, when they developed the remake with Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges .
The curious thing is that in the meantime, in the '60s, Japan made the creature one of the main protagonists of its monster movies in titles such as King Kong vs. Godzilla , King Kong Escapes or in an animated series for television. Precisely, the ideas that Hollywood has rescued in recent years to develop its successful cinematographic universe with these characters.
In the end, it became clear how much they skidded almost a century ago squeezing the goose that laid the golden eggs in such a hurry, because the opportunities that King Kong has given over the years have been numerous. If they had taken it calmly, developed a good sequel and had conquered again as with the original film, perhaps we would have had many more classic films of this mythical ape , of those endearing adventures of yesteryear that, despite the passage of over the years, it is still a pleasure to revisit.
If you want to discover Son of Kong , you can rent it through services such as AppleTV. Anyway, the character returns to theaters on March 28 with Godzilla and Kong: The New Empire .
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