Adam Wingard Was Hired by Peter Jackson to Helm a New KING KONG Sequel

By Mike Sprague

Long before Adam Wingard directed Godzilla vs Kong, Peter Jackson hand-picked him to develop a follow-up to his 2005 King Kong remake after seeing You’re Next.

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Wingard tells Yahoo: “It was just going to be called Skull Island … It was going to be a modern-day kind of thing, very different from what Kong: Skull Island ended up being … So that project went away, and I went away with it.”

He also tells Den of Geek: “I remember Mary talking about my pitch for Skull Island, and she seemed to remember thinking it was great. I don’t remember it hardly at all. I remember a couple of details. It was modern-day. There was some sort of opening scene where characters were in a museum and they’re talking. Then at the end of the scene, it’s revealed that the museum has these giant King Kong bones. He’s like this relic from the past and Skull Island is this sort of myth and nobody knows what happened to it. And somehow these characters are going back there.”

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He adds: “I remember there was this whole element of the island being cloaked somehow by some sort of technology. Those are the main things I can remember. I don’t remember what the plot was going to be about. Simon might remember better. Somebody should ask him at some point, because I’d be curious myself.”

Peter Jackson’s expansive remake of the 1933 classic followed director Carl Denham (Jack Black) and his crew on a journey from New York City to the ominous Skull Island to film a new movie. Accompanying him are Adrien Brody and Naomi Watts, who is whisked away by the monstrous ape, Kong, after they reach the island. The crew encounters dinosaurs and other creatures as they race to rescue Watts. All while she forms a bond with her simian captor.

Wingard’s Godzilla vs Kong is streaming now on HBO Max.

Legends collide in Godzilla vs. Kong as these mythic adversaries meet in a spectacular battle for the ages, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.  Kong and his protectors undertake a perilous journey to find his true home, and with them is a young girl with whom he has formed a unique and powerful bond. But they find themselves in the path of an enraged Godzilla, cutting a swath of destruction across the globe.  The epic clash of the two titans—instigated by unseen forces—is only the beginning of a mystery deep within the core of the Earth.

Would you also like to see Adam Wingard’s Skull Island?

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