Kong: Skull Island

Kong: Skull Island is a 2017 American giant monster action/adventure film produced by Legendary Pictures that serves as an origin story for the titular character and was released to American theaters on March 10, 2017. It is the second installment of the MonsterVerse series and stars Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly, and Toby Kebbell.

In the film, set in 1973 during the closing days of the Vietnam War, a joint expedition consisting of a group of soldiers and members of the scientific organization Monarch travel to Skull Island, an uncharted remote island in the South Pacific. There, they encounter terrifying and bizarre creatures living on the island, including Kong, the sole survivor of a species of giant apes and Skull Island's self-appointed guardian who must defend his home from a horde of monstrous reptilian super-species known as "Skullcrawlers", who are responsible for the extinction of Kong's race.

Plot
The film opens with a prologue during World War II, showing an American bailing out of his damaged P-51 Mustang. He encounters a Japanese pilot on the beach and briefly fights him, but as they struggle with a sword, a massive creature suddenly appears, looming over the two as the title credits roll.

In 1973, as the Vietnam War dies down, former British Special Air Service Captain James Conrad is hired by government agent Bill Randa to guide an expedition to map out a mysterious uncharted region in the Pacific dubbed "Skull Island", which has never been mapped due to perpetual storms surrounding it. Randa also recruits the Sky Devils, a helicopter squadron led by Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard and prominently made up of his right-hand, Major Jack Chapman and Captain Earl Cole to escort them to the island. The group is soon joined by "anti-war" photographer Mason Weaver, who is assigned to take pictures of the expedition, when in reality, she plans to expose it as the covert military operation she believes it to be.

Arriving on Skull Island, Packard's men begin dropping explosives developed by seismologist Houston Brooks to determine if the ground is hollow, despite Conrad's objections. The helicopters are suddenly attacked by a 100 foot-tall ape which goes by the name of Kong. All of the helicopters are destroyed as the beast throws a palm tree into one, and swats them out of the air like flies, and the survivors end up being split into small groups. In the midst of Kong's rampage, Packard stares up at Kong, interlocking eyes with him, filled with rage. The survivors' only hope for rescue is a resupply team that will meet them at the island's northern end in three days time.

When confronted by Packard, Randa reveals his affiliation to the secret government organization Monarch and the expedition's true purpose to acquire proof of the existence of forgotten monsters. Packard and his remaining men bury their dead comrades and begin searching for the missing members of the expedition, including Chapman. Along the way, they overcome aMother Longlegs, slicing off its bamboo-like legs which topples it over, allowing Packard to finish it off with gunfire. In a river nearby, Chapman is washing and filling his water canteen, until Kong appears. Chapman flees, leaving Kong tending his wounds and drinking after his battle with the Sky Devils. He is then suddenly attacked by a Mire Squid, which he manages to kill and proceeds to eat before leaving the river with its carcass.

Meanwhile, Conrad, Weaver, Brooks, biologist San Lin, soldierReg Slivko, and Landsat employee Victor Nieves run into the local Iwi natives and meet Hank Marlow, revealed to be the missing pilot who crash-landed on the island in 1944 with a Japanese pilot named Gunpei Ikari. Marlow explains that Kong is the island's guardian and worshiped by the natives for protecting them from the Skullcrawlers, reptilian underground monsters who have slaughtered Kong's ancestors, leaving him as the soul survivor. Marlow reveals Kong only attacked the helicopters to prevent the bombs from awakening the largest and deadliest of the Giant Skullcrawlers, dubbed by Marlow as "The Big One". He also reveals that "The Big One" will doom everyone and everything on the island should anything happen to Kong. After bonding with the natives, Weaver encounters a Sker Buffalo trapped under a fallen helicopter just outside the village. She struggles vainly to free the large beast but Kong comes and saves the buffalo, exchanging glances with Weaver before departing. Marlow shows Conrad and the others a boat made from parts of Marlow's and Ikari's planes when they befriended before Ikari was killed by a Skullcrawler, and they spend the rest of the day fixing it.

The following day, Conrad's group sets off down the river in the now-functioning boat, where they are beset byPsychovultures, which carry off and devour Nieves. The survivors manage to regroup with Packard, who insists on searching for Chapman, who - unbeknownst to them - has already been killed by a Skullcrawler after encountering a Spore Mantis. Marlow reluctantly leads both Conrad and Packard's team to the Boneyard, a forgotten battleground between Kong's ancestors and Skullcrawlers. The same Skullcrawler that killed Chapman attacks the group, killing Randa and many of Packard's men before Weaver kills it by triggering an explosion using Conrad's lighter. Despite learning of Chapman's death, a vengeful Packard blames Kong for the deaths of his men. Despite everyone else's warnings, Packard insisted on going to the crash site nonetheless. Marlow tried to persuade him, with Gunpei Ikari's Katana, only for Packard to knock him aside, under the implication that he would kill him if he interfered, along with anyone else thinking along the same lines. Eventually, Packard retrieves seismic explosives to lure Kong into a trap and kill him, while Conrad resolves to lead the non-military personnel back to the boat so they can rendezvous with the resupply team.

Later that night, while scouting the path ahead atop a high ledge, Conrad and Weaver encounter Kong up-close, seeing that he is in fact a gentle and intelligent creature to those that do him no harm. Suddenly, explosions sound off in the distance and Kong goes toward them. Knowing of Packard's vendetta, Conrad tells Brooks and San to return to the boat while he and Weaver resolve to save Kong, a sentiment that Marlow shares. Kong finds Packard and his men at a lake and charges toward the colonel on the other side. Having previously dumped napalm into the lake, Packard sets it ablaze, setting Kong on fire and incapacitating him as his men watch in horror. He orders his men to set explosives around the fallen creature, but before he can finish Kong off, Conrad, Weaver, and Marlow arrive and a standoff ensues. Conrad and Weaver convince the other soldiers to spare Kong, but Packard furiously refuses, still seeking vengeance for his fallen men. The group is suddenly attacked by a massive Skullcrawler, which emerges from beneath the swamp near the fallen Kong. Everyone flees except Packard, who tries to detonate the explosives in a last act of revenge, but it is too late, as Kong wakes up and crushes him with his fist.

Injured, Kong is overpowered by the massive opponent, which then chases the survivors as they race towards the shore and dawn comes. Cole tries to sacrifice himself to ensure the survival of his young comrades, arming grenades to supposedly kill the Skullcrawler after it eats him. However, the creature does not fall for this, and it swats him away with its tail, killing him as the grenades explode on the side of a mountain but Cole's sacrifice buys enough time for Kong to return and save the others, smashing a giant boulder against the Skullcrawler's head. Weaver climbs a tall cliff and fires a flare to guide Brooks and San to their location. Kong battles the Skullcrawler, at one point swinging a massive tree against its face. However, the Skullcrawler uses its tail to throw Kong into a sunken boat and he gets entangled in its chains. As the Skullcrawler closes in for the kill, Brooks and San arrive on the boat and open fire on the beast. Enraged, he turns his attention to the humans, buying Kong enough time to break free. Weaver fires a flare at the Skullcrawler, destroying its right eye, and Conrad lures it away from the people on the boat. Using a boat propeller attached to a chain, Kong impales the massive Skullcrawler with it, uses the chain to reel him in, and throws the Skullcrawler into the side of the cliff Weaver is standing on, accidentally causing her to fall into the river. Then Kong uses the propeller to slice open his adversary's throat, seemingly killing him.

Weaver almost drowns but she is rescued by Kong. Unfortunately, the giant Skullcrawler is still alive and it attacks Kong with Weaver clutched in his hand. In an attempt to devour Weaver, the Skullcrawler wraps his tongue around Kong's arm and pulls it down his throat. Kong uses this to his advantage, and with a violent yank of the Skullcrawler's tongue, tears out the creature's innards, finally killing him for good, avenging the deaths of his parents, and the extinction of the rest of his kind. With the creature finally dead, Kong gently sets Weaver down, looks back at her and Conrad and wanders off, peacefully allowing the surviving humans to leave. As helicopters arrive to take the survivors home, Kong reappears. Watching them leave, he beats his chest and roars fiercely, asserting his reign as the King of Skull Island.

Sometime afterward, Marlow returns home and is reunited with his wife and meets his now-adult son for the first time. He is later shown enjoying a beer and a hot dog as he watches his long-missed favorite sports on TV.

In a post-credits scene, Conrad and Weaver are held in a room by Monarch, where Brooks reveals they have been recruited by the organization. Brooks and San debrief them that Kong is not the only monster to roam the world, and not the only king. They are then shown archive footage showing cave paintings, depicting silhouetted images, which appear to be a bipedal spiked dinosaur-like creature, a winged pterosaur-like creature, a gigantic butterfly, and a three-headed dragon, before showing one final painting of the dinosaur and the three-headed dragon engaged in combat. The screen fades to black and a loud, familiar roar is heard: none other than that of the King of the Monsters himself: Godzilla.

Cast

 * Tom Hiddleston   as   Captain James Conrad
 * Samuel L. Jackson   as   Lt. Col. Preston Packard
 * Brie Larson   as   Mason Weaver
 * John C. Reilly   as   Lt. Hank Marlow
 * John Goodman   as   Bill Randa
 * Corey Hawkins   as   Houston Brooks
 * John Ortiz   as   Victor Nieves
 * Jing Tian   as   Lin San
 * Toby Kebbell   as   Maj. Jack Chapman / Kong
 * Jason Mitchell   as   Warrant Officer Glen Mills
 * Shea Whigham   as   Capt. Earl Cole
 * Thomas Mann   as   Warrant Officer Reg Slivko
 * Eugene Cordero   as   Reles
 * Marc Evan Jackson   as   Landsat Steve
 * Will Brittain   as   Young Marlow / Marlow's Son
 * MIYAVI   as   Gunpei Ikari
 * Richard Jenkins   as   Senator Willis
 * Allyn Rachel   as   Secretary O'Brien
 * Robert Taylor   as   Athena Captain

Monsters

 * King Kong
 * Skullcrawlers
 * Skull Devil
 * Mother Longlegs
 * Spore Mantis
 * Sker Buffalo
 * Mire Squid
 * Leafwings
 * Godzilla (mentioned; cave painting)
 * Rodan (cave painting)
 * Mothra (cave painting)
 * King Ghidorah (cave painting)

Production
Originally titled Skull Island, the film was announced by Legendary Pictures at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con, Universal Pictures was to be the distributor. Legendary then moved the project to Warner Bros. in order to develop a crossover film featuring King Kong and Godzilla.

Legendary offered Joe Cornish the job of directing the film, while Peter Jackson, who directed the 2005 version of King Kong, suggested Guillermo del Toro, who Legendary worked with on Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak. In September 2014, the studio announced that Jordan Vogt-Roberts would direct the film.

Writing
The script saw a number of screenwriters attached before filming. Seeking the continuity between the King Kong and Godzilla worlds, Max Borenstein (writer of 2014's Godzilla) wrote the first draft, while John Gatins was hired to write the second draft. In writing the script, Borenstein didn't want to repeat the "Beauty and the Beast" plot synonymous with King Kong movies, and took into account the outdated elements of the treatment of the island natives and the damsel in distress. His initial influence was Apocalypse Now, revealing,

Before Vogt-Roberts signed on as director, Borenstein had the idea of having the film begin during the Vietnam War and jump forward to the present day. After it was rejected, Borenstein instead had the film take place before the original King Kong film in 1917 during World War I while keeping the Apocalypse Now concept, and the premise had Tom Hiddleston's character leading a rescue team to Skull Island to find his missing brother, who had gotten stranded there while searching for a "Titan Serum" believed to cure all illnesses. After this, the story was again retooled to take place in the present day.

After Jordan Vogt-Roberts joined the project, he met with Borenstein and, liking the Apocalypse Now concept, pitched it to Legendary with the idea of the story taking place at the end of the Vietnam War, which the studio accepted. It was later revealed that Dan Gilroy had also collaborated on the Borenstein/Gatins draft. On August 18, 2015, it was confirmed that Derek Connolly was also doing script rewrites. Borenstein worked a final pass on the screenplay before shooting began, and credited the screenplay to all of the writers, saying, "It was definitely collaborative in terms of what's on the screen, though none of us worked together. There are pieces of my work in there as well as the work of the other two writers and John Gatins, who was credited for story. Everybody had a really good hand in it."

Gilroy revealed that many backstories and character moments were dropped from his draft, specifically for the characters of Mason Weaver and James Conrad, feeling that the film had room to explore them. Despite these ideas being dropped, Gilroy felt the film turned out to be a "good movie" regardless. In April 2016, artist Joe DeVito sued producers of the film for using elements of his Skull Island universe, which he claimed that he created and the producers used without his permission.

Creature design
Director Vogt-Roberts stated that he wanted Kong to look simple and iconic enough that a third grader could draw him, and the image would still be recognizable. Vogt-Roberts also wanted Kong to feel like a "lonely god, he was a morose figure, lumbering around this island," and took the design back to the 1933 incarnation, where Kong was presented as a "bipedal creature that walks in an upright position." Vogt-Roberts additionally stated, "If anything, our Kong is meant to be a throwback to the '33 version. [Kong] was a movie monster, so we worked really hard to take some of the elements of the '33 version, some of those exaggerated features, some of those cartoonish and iconic qualities, and then make them their own…We created something that to some degree served as a throwback to the inspiration for what started all of this, but then also [had] it be a fully unique and different creature that — I would like to think — is fully contained and identifiable as the 2017 version of King Kong. I think there are very modern elements to him, yet hopefully, he feels very timeless at the same time."

Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke helped influence the design and approach of the monsters, Vogt-Roberts stated, "Miyazaki['s] Princess Mononoke was actually a big reference in the way that the spirit creatures sort of have their own domains and fit within that. So a big thing [was] trying to design creatures that felt realistic and could exist in an ecosystem that feels sort of wild and out there, and then also design things that simultaneously felt beautiful and horrifying at the same time."

The two-armed pit lizard from the 1933 King Kong film was used as a reference for the Skullcrawlers. They were also inspired by a number of other cinematic creatures; Vogt-Roberts stated, "That creature, beyond being a reference to a creature from the 1933 film, is also this crazy fusion of all of the influences throughout my life – like the first angel from Evangelion, and No-Face from Spirited Away, and Cubone from Pokémon."

Casting
At the same time of the announcement of Vogt-Roberts as director, the studio also announced that Tom Hiddleston would play the lead role. For a time both, J. K. Simmons and Michael Keaton were attached to roles however both left due to scheduling difficulties. On July 23, 2015, Brie Larson was cast in the film to play the female lead. On August 5, 2015, it was announced that Corey Hawkins was cast in the film to play a supporting role. On August 6, 2015, Deadline Hollywood reported that the studio was in early talks with Samuel L. Jackson to replace the role which Simmons vacated, while John C. Reilly was being eyed for Keaton's role, but not offered it yet. Tom Wilkinson was also offered a role in the film.

On August 20, 2015, Toby Kebbell joined the cast of the film, while Jackson and Reilly were confirmed for roles. Jackson’s deal was worth five million dollars. On August 25, 2015, Jason Mitchell joined the cast, to play a pilot. On September 25, 2015, John Goodman was cast to play Randa, a government official and leader of an expedition, and Thomas Mann was also cast. On October 1, 2015, John Ortiz and Shea Whigham were added to the cast in unspecified roles. On October 13, 2015, Eugene Cordero joined the film, and on November 2, 2015, it was announced Will Brittain had joined the cast, portraying a pilot, in one of the last key leads in the film. In May 2016, Toby Kebbell revealed that Terry Notary would portray Kong through motion capture, and that Kebbell provided some guidance for Kong's motion capture sequences.

Filming
Principal photography on the film began on October 19, 2015, and concluded on March 18, 2016. Filming took place in the northern portion of Vietnam, including Tràng An, Vân Long and Tam Cốc (Ninh Bình Province), Hạ Long Bay (Quảng Ninh Province), and at the entrance of Tú Làn Caves System (Tân Hoá, Trung Hoá Village, Minh Hoá District Quảng Bình Province), the island of Oahu in Hawaii, and Australia's Gold Coast. Locations included Honolulu's Chinatown, and at the Kualoa Ranch and Waikane Valley (Ohulehule Forest Conservancy) on Oahu. In mid-January 2016, filming started in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.