![](\"https:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7991\/933\/400\/kingkong.jpg\")
Some soundtrack buffs say if you read between the lines in this New York Times<\/a><\/i> story, you can see why Howard Shore was dropped<\/a> from Peter Jackson\u2019s upcoming remake of King Kong<\/a><\/i>:<\/span><\/p>\n
In hiring Peter Jackson, the Oscar-winning director of the \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d trilogy, to remake the monster classic \u201cKing Kong,\u201d Universal Pictures took a daring leap, paying him $20 million to direct, produce and be the co-writer of the film.<\/p>\n
With seven weeks to go before the movie\u2019s release, the risks are becoming clearer. After seeing a version of the film in late September at Mr. Jackson\u2019s studio in New Zealand, Universal executives agreed to release \u201cKing Kong\u201d at a length of three hours.<\/p>\n
The film is substantially longer than Universal had anticipated and presents dual obstacles: the extra length has helped increase the budget by a third, to $207 million, while requiring the studio, owned by General Electric, to reach for the kind of long-term audience interest that made hits out of three-hour movies like \u201cTitanic\u201d and the films in Mr. Jackson\u2019s \u201cRings\u201d trilogy. . . .<\/p>\n
This time around, the picture depends upon another oversize talent in the person of Mr. Jackson, who was granted an unusual degree of control at a time when studios are trimming costs and tightening their grips on most productions. Not only did Mr. Jackson produce and direct, and also write with his longtime partner, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens, but his companies Weta Digital and Weta Workshop also created the physical and computer special effects in the film at Mr. Jackson\u2019s studio in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount took a risk in granting the director James Cameron a similar degree of control over his famously overbudget 1997 film \u201cTitanic,\u201d and eventually came up winners. In that case, Mr. Cameron\u2019s three-hour epic, a love story set in the midst of the ship\u2019s sinking, went on to break box-office records and win 11 Oscars. With \u201cKing Kong,\u201d Universal executives say they are convinced that they have an epic of comparable worth, even though they were surprised by the length.<\/p>\n
\u201cI anticipated it would be long, but not this long,\u201d the Universal chairwoman, Stacey Snider, said. As recently as late September, she expected about two hours and 40 minutes, she said. But on Wednesday she expressed delight with the picture she\u2019s got: \u201cThis is a masterpiece. I can\u2019t wait to unveil it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The increased length, Ms. Snider said, means that the movie will cost $32 million more than planned, adding to expenses that had already gone up $25 million from an original $150 million production budget.<\/p>\n
Who will pay for these budget overruns has been the subject of intense negotiations over the last two weeks, with representatives of the studio and the director haggling over who was responsible, according to those involved in the negotiations.<\/p>\n
Ms. Snider said that as of Wednesday, all had been resolved, with the studio more or less splitting the $32 million expense with Mr. Jackson. <\/p>\n
In an e-mail message, Mr. Jackson appeared to disagree, saying instead that he would be paying for those expenditures, which were mainly associated with extra digital-effects shots. Referring to his partner, Ms. Walsh, Mr. Jackson wrote: \u201cSince Fran and I believed in the three-hour cut and wanted to take responsibility for the extra length, we offered to pay for these extra shots ourselves. That\u2019s what we\u2019re doing.\u201d He did not say how much that would be, but said the extra effects shot would cost \u201cconsiderably below $32 million.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Universal responded, \u201cWe are working together to cover overages.\u201d . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Make what you will of all that.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some soundtrack buffs say if you read between the lines in this New York Times story, you can see why Howard Shore was dropped from Peter Jackson\u2019s upcoming remake of King Kong: In hiring Peter Jackson, the Oscar-winning director of the \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d trilogy, to remake the monster classic \u201cKing Kong,\u201d Universal Pictures […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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