King Kong Is Becoming A Disney+ Series From Billion-Dollar Blockbuster Director
An amazing director choice!
King Kong is moving from the IMAX to the small screen in a new upcoming series for Disney+. The series is still in early development, but it has a promising team behind the scenes. Director and producer James Wan brings us the series through his Atomic Monster company, marking the first time that we’ll get a live-action TV show set in the Kong universe. Alongside Wan, Stephany Folsom (Paper Girls) will be executive producing. Folsom also writes the series. According to the Deadline report, the show will be an action-adventure series that returns to Skull Island and follows the dawn of a new Kong.
The new King Kong Disney series will further explore the mysteries of Kong and his home, Skull Island. The show is based on the IP from Merian C. Cooper’s original book and the latest Kong novelizations by Joe DeVito. This isn’t the first attempt to bring a live-action Kong series to television, as MarVista Entertainment and IM Global Television tried to adapt the same material five years ago. The project never amounted to anything, so now Disney is taking on the series.
There certainly has been a resurgence in King Kong media in the last few years before Disney tackled it. Peter Jackson rebooted the towering gorilla in 2005 with his movie King Kong, which largely followed the plot of the 1933 classic. Legendary Pictures would bring Kong back to the big screen in 2017 with Kong: Skull Island, adding Kong to their series of Monsterverse film creatures. Kong: Skull Island was a fresh take on the Kong story, focusing more on Kong’s battles on Skull Island rather than an ill-fated trip to the top of the Empire State Building. Legendary would cement their Monsterverse as a crossover franchise with 2021’s Godzilla vs Kong, which saw the atomic lizard and the King of the apes go head to head. While the new Disney TV series is yet to announce a release date, there is a planned sequel to Godzilla vs Kong set to release sometime in 2024.
In short, fans of King Kong will have plenty to look forward to in the coming years, including the Disney show. Meanwhile, Kong fans won’t have long to wait to see him again in an animated format, as Netflix is releasing an anime titled Skull Island. Supposedly, the series should be released sometime in 2022, though that remains to be seen. The anime takes place in the Legendary Picture Monsterverse, so fans of the ongoing franchise will want to be on the lookout for it. The series will follow a shipwrecked crew who arrive on Skull Island. Apple TV+ will also be contributing their own series to the mix, based on Legendary’s Monsterverse. The Apple TV+ live-action series will follow a family uncovering their secrets and links to the Monarch organization after the battle between Godzilla and the Titans leveled San Francisco. While it’s unclear if Kong himself will make an appearance, the show will tie into the franchise as a whole. The Netflix anime, the Apple TV+ series, and the Disney+ series have not yet announced release dates.
