King Kong

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Peter Jackson directs. Andrew Lesnie behind the camera. James Newton Howard scores. Jamie Selkirk cuts. A long sit — settle in. Profitable at the box office. Produced in United States of America, New Zealand, Germany. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

• 1At 188 minutes, this is a three-hour-plus commitment — longer than 95% of films ever made.
• 2Budget of $207M — blockbuster tier. Only ~1% of films ever made reach this.
• 3Released 21 years ago.
• 4International production across 3 countries: United States of America, New Zealand, Germany.
• 5312+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.
• 6Directed by Peter Jackson, shot by Andrew Lesnie. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
• 7Original score by James Newton Howard. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
• 8Editor Jamie Selkirk shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
• 9Naomi Watts and Adrien Brody and Jack Black carry the top of the cast.
• 10Marketing tagline: "The eighth wonder of the world.".
• 11IMDB entry: tt0360717 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
• 12Classified under 19 themes, including "new york city", "exotic island", "movie business", "show business".

The technical file

Cinematography

Andrew Lesnie

Original score

James Newton Howard

Editing

Jamie Selkirk

Production design

Grant Major

Costume design

Terry Ryan

Makeup / hair

Peter Swords King

VFX supervisor

Ben Snow

Sound

Brent Burge

Stunt coordinator

Kirk Maxwell

Runtime

188 min · 3h 8m

Aspect ratio (typical)

1.37:1 (Academy)

Status

Released

Budget

$207,000,000

Box office

$562,363,449

Return

272% of budget

Original language

EN

Certification (US)

PG-13

IMDB

King Kong (2005) ↗

Rotten Tomatoes

84% 🍅 Fresh

Metacritic

81/100

IMDB rating

7.2/10 · 465,049 votes

MPAA

PG-13

Also by

Peter Jackson

• 
  The Valley

  1976 · ★ 10.0
• 
  The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

  2003 · ★ 8.5
• 
  The Making of 'The Frighteners'

  1998 · ★ 8.5
• 
  The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

  2001 · ★ 8.4
• 
  The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

  2002 · ★ 8.4
• 
  The Beatles: Get Back

  2021 · ★ 8.4

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

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Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

• 

  ▶
  Ann Entertains Kong With a Dance

  Clip · Official
• 

  ▶
  Kong Saves Ann From the V. rex's

  Clip · Official
• 

  ▶
  Kong vs T-Rex - Extended Preview

  Clip · Official
• 

  ▶
  Piranhadon Causes Devastation - Deleted Scene

  Featurette · Official
• 

  ▶
  Ann & Kong's Christmas in Central Park

  Clip · Official
• 

  ▶
  The Beast Unleashed - Extended Preview

  Clip · Official

Community reviews

What people are saying

• John Chard2019-05-30
  ★ 7/10

  They just couldn't leave him on his island could they... King Kong is directed by Peter Jackson and Jackson co-writes the screenplay with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. It's based on a story by Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace. It stars Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Colin Hanks, Andy Serkis, Evan Parke, Jamie Bell and Kyle Chandler. Music is by James Newton Howard and cinematography by Andrew Lesnie. After completing the hugely successful Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson turned his attentions to a reimaging of that daddy of classic creature features, King Kong. With all the new tools of the trade to hand, Jackson set about making a Kong film full of love and respect the original from 1933, whilst obviously making his own beast as it were. Story remains the same, mankind sets off to a fabled place known as Skull Island, there they find beasties not of this world, not least a gigantic mountain of a gorilla. They stupidly bring him back to America for money making exercises and things go really bad. The End. I have personally found it most interesting re-watching the film nearly 15 years since its release, especially given we have not long had a different Kong reboot with "Kong: Skull Island" in 2017. For the differences, for better or worse depending on your proclivities in Kongdom, are enormous. Kong: Skull Island is a no brain adventure yarn, high on action but low on intelligence, but it does know it. Jackson's Kong aspired to be much more cerebral, and for the most part it achieves it. Sadly it takes a whopping 3 hours to reveal its intentions, which was a problem to many back in 2005, and is still a hindrance sitting down to watch it these days - this even knowing and preparing once again for how long it is. Frustratingly there's a great film in the mix just crying out for an hour of extraneous filler and clunky dialogue to be jettisoned. Once set up has been achieved in the first hour, we finally get to Skull Island and it's an absolute technical treat. The look is fantastic, the turn of events as Kong and his acolytes have been introduced is terrific. From here it's creature feature mayhem, the beauty and the beast aspect kicks into gear, and it's all very comforting, thrilling even - with one exception. A dinosaur stampede looks ridiculous, the blend of human actors and CGI is so poor it belies the money spent on the effects for this production. That aside, though, the action sequences are electric, particularly the monster mash ups. Yet the quite reflective periods on Skull Island really strike a chord as well, just sections where Kong and Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) are chilling out together, taking in the landscape that money mad men want to take Kong away from... Then it's back to The States and carnage ensues, culminating in a brilliantly staged last quarter of film, where all that superb period detail gets obliterated during the battle between man and beast, and where even now I'm rooting for Kong to win! As the tenderness of the Beauty and the Beast arc subsides - and it is beautiful - it's then that you once again know that Jackson was too indulgent. His cast were on form, Serkis as Kong a revelation, this is a great picture at times, a real treat in High Definition, if only someone had fronted him up to not over indulge. For then we might have a 9/10 movie as opposed to a bloated 7/10 one.

  Read full review ↓
• GenerationofSwine2023-01-10
  ★ 1/10

  05 is the worst of the Kong movies, mainly because it tries to do way too much. It tries to be epic, and because it tries to be epic it drags. DRAGS. Watching through it, there is about an hour and a half that I would cut, mostly because it's not necessary for a movie like this. There was character development... but too much of it. There was plot, but too much of it. If the movie was trimmed down with an eye to making it flow, it would have been decent. But instead they let it run too long with with not enough happening in it to be an exciting monster movie. The result was kind of a drag.

  Read full review ↓
• BarbaGianni2026-08-01
  ★ 9/10

  The best of the remakes produced so far, second only to the original of '33.\ Kong and the other Island's creatures are detailed in their alternate evolution and the work behind each is enormous.\ The colonial atmosphere and mentality of the era are also well represented and are very reminiscent of Cooper's original.\ Jack Black has given the best of himself in the film, skis and interested only in profit is an interesting and multifaceted character with motivations that are more or less shareable; but the real star of the show is none other than Andy Serkis who masterfully played Kong managing to perfectly represent a gorilla in his true nature, resulting in a deep and expressive character despite being an 8-meter monkey. Certainly Peter Jackson has left his unmistakable hand in this work which is sublime and elegant but at the same time grotesque and "old style", of a much higher level than the classic "Monster Movie" to date in my opinion is still one of the best films of the genre (certainly much better than that shit of '17) and the best of the Kong'saga (except for the original of '33 which is still a milestone in the Cinema's history).

  Read full review ↓

Production companies

Who made it

• 

  Universal Pictures

  US

• 

  WingNut Films

  NZ

• BI

  Big Primate Pictures

  US

• MF

  MFPV Film

  DE

Key crew

• CastingJohn Hubbard
• ProducerFran Walsh
• ProducerJan Blenkin
• CastingDan Hubbard
• Sound DesignerBrent Burge
• Sound DesignerDavid Farmer
• ProducerCarolynne Cunningham
• CastingVictoria Burrows
• CastingLiz Mullane
• Costume DesignTerry Ryan
• ProducerPeter Jackson
• EditorJamie Selkirk
• Production DesignGrant Major
• First Assistant CameraSally Eccleston
• StuntsMana Hira Davis
• StuntsWinham Hammond
• Stunt DoubleMin Windle
• StuntsMorgan Evans
• StuntsTim Wong
• StuntsJason Tahu
• StuntsMark Trotter
• StuntsAndrew Stehlin
• StuntsDavid J. Muzzerall
• Stunt CoordinatorKirk Maxwell

Themes & keywords

What it's about, really

• new york city
• exotic island
• movie business
• show business
• human animal relationship
• great depression
• giant insect
• remake
• prehistoric creature
• dinosaur
• creature
• kaiju
• empire state building
• giant ape
• woman in peril
• 1930s
• giant gorilla
• grand
• king kong

Release history · US

When it landed

• Premiere2005-12-05PG-13· New York City, New York
• Theatrical2005-12-14PG-13
• Physical2006-03-28

Also known as

International titles

• 金剛HK
• کینگ کنگIR
• King KongBR
• キング・コング：2005JP
• King KongPL
• King KongDE