As a film buff, I remember hearing about the 1976 remake of King Kong. Dino De Laurentiis, the producer behind films like Death Wish and Conan the Barbarian, really went for it, hoping to recapture the magic of the original and even top the previous year’s Jaws. The new version starred Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, and introduced us to Jessica Lange! While it didn’t quite reach the $150 million De Laurentiis was aiming for, earning around $90.6 million worldwide, it still made almost four times its $23 million budget. That kind of success always gets Hollywood thinking about sequels, even if the main character isn’t exactly in a position to return!
Just a year after the original King Kong came out, the filmmaker announced plans for a sequel. He reasoned that just because a character like Steve McQueen dies in one film doesn’t mean he can’t star in another, and that Kong was a star who deserved another story. This somewhat shaky logic eventually led to King Kong Lives… though it didn’t appear until a full decade later, and is actually set at that time.
What Got the Ball Rolling on King Kong Lives?
Few monster movies are stranger than King Kong Lives. Instead of being dead, Kong is simply in a coma after falling from the Twin Towers. Imagine if Jaws 2 had the same shark return after being blown up, accompanied by a defiant “Smile, you son of a—!” It’s that level of unusual.
In The Terminator‘s Linda Hamilton stars as Dr. Amy Franklin, the surgeon treating Kong. Kong needs a heart transplant to survive – he’s currently using an artificial heart, but has lost too much blood to wake up. He won’t survive without a blood transfusion from another giant ape. Dr. Franklin partners with adventurer Hank Mitchell, who has discovered a female ape similar to Kong, to find a way to complete the transfusion.
After waking up, Kong feels a connection to Lady Kong, breaks her free, and together they explore the wild. Predictably, the military, headed by Lt. Col. Archie Nevitt (known from Beverly Hills Cop), gets involved. Nevitt captures Lady Kong and appears to kill Kong, but Kong manages to find his way back to her just in time to confront the military and witness the birth of their son.
The movie culminates in a strangely comical childbirth scene involving a giant ape as the mother. It’s undeniably silly, and while that can be amusing, many viewers likely lose interest once they realize the plot hinges on King Kong receiving a heart transplant and blood transfusion. This explains why the studio made Son of Kong instead of trying to bring the original King Kong back to life – the premise had become too absurd.
How Did King Kong Lives Turn Out?
This movie tries to do a lot, even if the ideas are a bit wild. To make it work without feeling silly, it needed a huge budget – not just for a Kong costume, but for a female Kong and their baby too. The filmmakers also spent a lot on elaborate scenes like Kong’s surgery, a battle with hunters, and a final showdown against the army.
Despite being released a full decade later, Lives cost only $18 million to make, about 75% of what King Kong cost. As a result, the film never appeared visually impressive, and it still doesn’t.
The 1976 King Kong isn’t a masterpiece, and it’s a bit cheesy, but it’s not overly so. King Kong Lives, however, is relentlessly silly. While it has some entertaining parts, it’s bogged down by lengthy, boring scenes of Mitchell and Dr. Franklin falling in love – mirroring the romance between Kong and Lady Kong.
As expected, critics weren’t impressed with the 1976 King Kong (it has a 55% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and even less so with King Kong Lives (8%). After a ten-year wait for the sequel, American audiences didn’t seem to care much either – it only earned $4.7 million at the box office, just 9% of what the original film made. However, the movie was a big hit in the Soviet Union, becoming the highest-grossing foreign film there that year.
Stream King Kong Lives on Shout! Factory Amazon Channel.
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2025-11-09 19:12