King Kong (2005 film) in the context of "King Kong (1976 film)"

King Kong is a 1933 American pre-Code adventure horror monster film directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, with special effects by Willis H. O'Brien and music by Max Steiner. Produced and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures, King Kong is the first film in the self-titled franchise, combining live action sequences with stop-motion animation using rear-screen projection. The idea for the film came when Cooper decided to create a motion picture about a giant gorilla struggling against modern civilization. The film stars Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, and Bruce Cabot. The film follows a giant ape dubbed Kong who feels affection for a beautiful young woman offered to him as a sacrifice.

King Kong premiered in New York City on March 2, 1933, to many rave reviews, with praise for its stop-motion animation and musical score. During its initial run, the film earned a profit of $650,000, which increased to $2,847,000 by the time of its re-release in 1952. Various scenes were deleted by censors, and in 1970, they were restored. Later, in 1991, the film was deemed "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 2010, the film was ranked by Rotten Tomatoes as the greatest horror film of all time and the fifty-sixth greatest film of all time. Various new editions of the film have also been released. A sequel, entitled Son of Kong, was made the same year as the original film, and several more films have been made, including two remakes in 1976 and 2005, respectively. The characters and story have since entered the public domain; the film's copyright is set to expire in 2029 in the US. Analysis of the film has included such topics as racial stereotypes, Ann's relationship with the other characters, and the struggle between nature and civilization.

King Kong, also referred to simply as Kong, is a fictional giant monster, or kaiju, resembling a gorilla, who has appeared in various media since 1933. The character has become an international pop culture icon, appearing in several movies, comics, videogames and television series, as well as repeatedly crossing over with the Godzilla franchise. Kong has been dubbed the King of the Beasts.

His first appearance was in the novelization of the 1933 film King Kong from RKO Pictures, with the film premiering a little over two months later. A sequel quickly followed that same year with The Son of Kong, featuring Little Kong. The Japanese film company Toho later produced King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), featuring a giant Kong battling Toho's Godzilla, and King Kong Escapes (1967), a film loosely based on Rankin/Bass' The King Kong Show (1966–1969). In 1976, Dino De Laurentiis produced a modern remake of the original film directed by John Guillermin. A sequel, King Kong Lives, followed a decade later featuring a Lady Kong. Another remake of the original, set in 1933, was released in 2005 by filmmaker Peter Jackson.

Sir Peter Robert Jackson ONZ KNZM (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand filmmaker. He is best known as the director, writer, and producer of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003) and the Hobbit trilogy (2012–2014), both of which are adapted from the novels of the same name by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Other notable films include the critically lauded drama Heavenly Creatures (1994), the horror comedy The Frighteners (1996), the epic monster remake film King Kong (2005), the World War I documentary film They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) and the documentary The Beatles: Get Back (2021). He is the fourth-highest-grossing film director of all-time, with his films having made over $6.5 billion worldwide.