Huge spider

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Huge spider Alternate names Spider, Insect Species Giant spider First appearance King Kong Latest appearance Merian C. Cooper's King Kong

The huge spider is a giant arachnid monster that was scrapped from the 1933 film King Kong after its scene was cut from the theatrical release, and presumed destroyed. Despite this, it remained in the film's novelization. It was next visualized for a story almost 60 years later in the 1991 comic adaptation of the novelization. In 2005, Peter Jackson and the team at Weta Workshop recreated the spider and the scene it came from based on the script and surviving images of the prop. Of all the pit creatures, the spider seems to be the one with the most photographic evidence available.

Name

The huge spiders of Skull Island are never given a proper name, and are often simply referred to as spiders, albeit ones of immense size. At one point in the 1932 novelization, they are described as a swarm of "great spiders", and in the script one is described as a "huge spider".

Design

One huge spider is described in the original King Kong novelization as resembling "a keg on many legs", and having "lidless, protruding eyes of no discernible color."

History

King Kong

The huge spiders inhabited the great crevice of Skull Mountain Island, and lived in the numerous caves and crevices that lined it. After a member of the species sized up a Two-Legged Lizard, it decided that it was too large to take on, and instead opted to eat an Octopus-Insect. Shortly after this, King Kong began to shake sailors from the Wanderer off of a log bridging the chasm, while a Triceratops blocked the other end of the log. One fell into the slimy mud at the bottom, and was swarmed by six great spiders that ate him alive. After the rest of them fell into the pit, the huge spiders, Octopus-insects, and Two-Legged Lizards all fought for the new carrion.

Merian C. Cooper's King Kong

While the crew of the Wanderer peered into the Skull Island chasm, Carl Denham watched as a huge spider appeared to hunt a gigantic lizard before being deterred. Denham then saw he was mistaken, and that the spider was instead hunting a round, tentacled creature. The spider quickly sprang upon its prey and dragged it into the seclusion of one of the many crevices lining the chasm wall.

Comics

King Kong #2

As the crew of the Wanderer crosses a log over the Skull Island chasm, Kong began to shake them off, leading to a crewman falling into the web spun by the huge spiders directly beneath it.

King Kong #3

The surviving Wanderer crewman, Jack Driscoll, and Ann Darrow watched in horror as Kong shook the log and more and more crewmen fell into the web and were mobbed by the spider colony. The log eventually came loose and he threw it into the pit, causing the web to rupture and the spiders to go flying.

Gallery

Production

King Kong

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  Concept art of the pit scene, including the spider by Byron Crabbe

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  The Spider puppet that was used in the film

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  An image of the spider alongside a giant lizard

Screenshots

The Lost Spider Pit Sequence

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Comics

King Kong (1991)

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References

This is a list of references for Huge spider. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: ^[1]

Bibliography

• Lovelace, Delos W. (1932). King Kong. Grosset and Dunlap. ISBN 0448439131.

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