The idea of a prequel didn’t really exist when King Kong first premiered in 1933. The movie – about a giant ape taken from its home on Skull Island, put on display in New York City and then lashing out against its oppressors (and falling in love, naturally) – was an enormous success that spawned one sequel (Son of Kong) and a few imitators (Mighty Joe Young), but it didn’t get exploited the way blockbuster movies do today. Legendary Pictures announced their plans to fix that “problem” at Comic-Con 2014 with a fllm entitled Skull Island, which would tell the origin story of one of cinema’s greatest characters, who is quite incidentally also one of its greatest “monsters.”
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An update on the story has come just a few days later: the directing duties on Skull Island have been offered to Joe Cornish, according to Deadline. The filmmaker is best known for co-writing the screenplay to The Adventures of Tintin with fellow filmmaker Edgar Wright, and for writing and directing the cult hit Attack the Block in 2011.
Since the release of Attack the Block Joe Cornish has been on the short list for many of the biggest films in Hollywood, including Star Trek sequels and a long-awaited adaptation of Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, to which he was attached back in 2012 but which hasn’t seen the light of day yet. Presumably his involvement with Skull Island would lend credence to the theory that Snow Crash is once again stuck in development hell.
Although he’s directed only one feature, Attack the Block is an excellent calling card for bigger projects like Skull Island, and we thoroughly suspect here at CraveOnline that Cornish if anyone could knock this prequel out of the park, it’s Joe Cornish. Let’s hope he accepts the offer.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
