Arguably the most anticipated film panel of the whole San Diego 2005 Comic Con convention was a look at Peter Jackson's "King Kong" opening in December. Jackson wasn't there but did deliver a fun and quite extensive video message. The much slimmer but exhausted looking Kiwi seemed in good spirits and after playing the teaser trailer again he helped set up another piece of footage.
Strenuously and quite hilariously he explained to us that the footage was incomplete, he then preceeded to show off a five minute or so sequence from the film set during the Skull Island scenes with Naomi and the title character. Much of this was animatic, blue screen and rough computer animation but there was quite a bit of near complete effects as well.
The clip they showed has several T-Rexes trying to attack Anne Darrow (Naomi Watts) as Kong attempts to protect her. During the fight the Rexes sink their mouths into Kong's arms multiple times and he screams out in pain. Much of the fight happens off the ground as the big beasties fall from one cliff ledge to another and end up hanging in some large tree vines. As Kong tries to fend off one Rex, another is trying to swing on the vines to snap at Watts who's stuck hanging onto one of the long tree vines. At more than one point she ends up on a dino's snout and escapes near death.
The fight finally reaches the forest floor and it gets truly brutal when the one left goes for Naomi after she realises Kong is trying to protect her and makes a move toward him. The next bit was rough and got a great laugh from the audience when Kong holds the T-Rex's jaw wide open, rips its tounge out with his own teeth and then kills it by ripping its jaw off its body and smashing its skull against the rocks.
This all preceeded the arrival on-stage of the film's three stars - Adrien Brody, Naomi Watts and Jack Black. Many of the questions went to Black and revolved around his band but the other stars got some words in too. All stressed a love for the director, the fact that this film delivers deeper and more interesting characters and that all seemed to have had a good time. At one point Brody and Watts ended up banging the table percussion style whilst Black started improvising a song about "Kong... His Name Is Kong". By the end the panel was seen as pretty much the strongest of the whole convention and an excellent end to Saturday's proceedings.
