There’s a line in the awe-inspiring SDCC trailer for Kong: Skull Island – “you don’t go into someone’s home unless you’re picking a fight.” – that perfectly tees up an obscure shot of the great ape himself, standing tall against the shimmering sunset.
But just how tall will the immense gorilla be in Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ upcoming reboot? Well, according to producer Alex Garcia, Kong will stand at a mighty 100ft tall and is very much considered to be “his own species.”
Word comes by way of Empire, who quizzed Garcia in the lead up to SDCC for their new issue. Considering that the 1933 version of Kong was estimated to be around 25ft tall, Tom Hiddleston and co. will be tackling a very different kind of horror – a monster from some bygone era, as Samuel L. Jackson’s booming character sums up.
It’s something that chimes with Vogt-Roberts’ own summary of the title creature which, at a mighty 100ft tall, is nothing short of a god.
“The thing that most interested me was, how big do you need to make [Kong], so that when someone lands on this island and doesn’t believe in the idea of myth, the idea of wonder – when we live in a world of social and civil unrest, and everything is crumbling around us, and technology and facts are taking over – how big does this creature need to be, so that when you stand on the ground and you look up at it, the only thing that can go through your mind is: ‘That’s a god.”
But make no mistake, King Kong isn’t the only thing our crew of explorers will have to contend with; Garcia tells Empire that Skull Island isn’t exactly the kind of destination one would find on TripAdvisor: “There are jungles, sulphur pits, bamboo forests, a variety of different environments that are both wondrous and incredibly dangerous.”
Bound for that primordial isle alongside Hiddleston and Jackson are Brie Larson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly, Tian Jing, Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton), Jason Mitchell, John Ortiz, Thomas Mann, Shea Whigham, Toby Kebbell and Eugene Cordero.
Kong: Skull Island stomps into theaters on March 10, 2017. Legendary’s monstrous slate also spans a Godzilla sequel in 2018, followed swiftly by the main event – Godzilla Vs. King Kong in 2020.