King Kong vs. Prometheus
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King Kong vs. Prometheus is an unrealized King Kong film proposal conceived by Willis O'Brien. It eventually led to the production of King Kong vs. Godzilla, though O'Brien was never consulted about the film's creation nor given any credit or compensation for his ideas.
Plot
In the jungles of the Congo River in Africa, the grandson of Dr. Frankenstein creates a giant gray-skinned, hairless, and humanoid-shaped monster made of various African megafauna such as elephants and crocodiles. At the same time, King Kong is revealed to have somehow survived his fall from the Empire State Building and secretly spirited back to Skull Island by an elderly Carl Denham. Originally meant to be a servant, Dr. Frankenstein is encouraged by a visiting Denham to promote his creation and the two combine their respective monsters into a large show together. The doctor assumes his creation, Prometheus, is docile thanks to a control device; however, Prometheus turns on his creator and kills him upon the show being brought to San Francisco. With Prometheus on a rampage, King Kong is turned loose to fend him off. The two creatures do battle across the city, where they both eventually fall off the top of the Golden Gate Bridge and into San Francisco Bay while still fighting each other, with neither one of them emerging from the water. Both of them are then believed to have died.[5]
History
King Kong vs. Frankenstein was a project originally conceived as a sequel to the 1933 film King Kong, with a story treatment written by stop-motion animator Willis O'Brien.
O'Brien showed his treatment and self-drawn concept art for the proposed film to Daniel O'Shea of RKO Pictures, who in turn introduced O'Brien to producer John Beck. After a handshake deal with O'Brien, Beck commissioned screenwriter George Worthing Yates to flesh out the story into a full script that could be shown to investors.[3] Yates changed the title to King Kong vs. Prometheus, after the full title of Mary Shelley’s original novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Unable to find an interested studio in the U.S., Beck went to Toho with the script. Toho purchased the rights to use the King Kong character from RKO and produced King Kong vs. Godzilla instead, which Beck retained the distribution rights for in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Israel.[6][7] Beck's dealings with Toho were all done without O'Brien's knowledge and he was never given any credit or compensation for his ideas by Toho. In fact, O'Brien was not even aware of the Toho film's existence until after it had been released in Japanese theaters. He contemplated suing Beck for intent to defraud, but did not have enough money for a protracted legal battle. On November 10, 1962, O'Brien died of a heart attack in his home and Darlyne, his widow, would later cite "the frustration of the King Kong Vs Frankenstein deal" as a contributing factor to his death.[8]
While Toho replaced the giant Frankenstein's monster with Godzilla as Kong's opponent, it revisited the concept for a proposed but unmade follow-up titled Frankenstein vs. Godzilla, which itself led to the film Frankenstein vs. Baragon.
Gallery
King Kong
Frankenstein
Frankenstein heads
King Kong front view in color
King Kong side view in color
Frankenstein front view in color
Frankenstein side view in color
A comparison between the two monsters
The two monsters performing in the show in San Francisco
The two monsters fighting each other in the streets of San Francisco
References
This is a list of references for King Kong vs. Prometheus. 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]
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