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Kong Unmade: The Lost Films of Skull Island
Just like Godzilla, Gamera and their kaiju kin, King Kong was to be the star of many an unmade film. In this new book learn of a plethora of prequels, sequels, and even in-between-quels to the 1933 King Kong. From Merian C. Cooper himself came ideas for The New Adventures of King Kong (1933) to chronicle Kong and Denham’s journey to New York; Tarzan vs. King Kong (1934), a Technicolor prequel set on Skull Island; and Space Kong (1969), a psychedelic sequel set in space! Learn the tragic history behind Willis O’Brien’s King Kong vs. Frankenstein that lead to the making of King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) plus Kong’s original starring role in what became Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster (1966). Unmade remakes like The Legend of King Kong plus unmade sequels to Dino De Laurentiis’s King Kong (1976) and King Kong Lives (1986) are also covered. In addition to these unmade films, readers can also explore the detailed histories behind these Kong Konga (1961), The Mighty Gorga (1969), Queen Kong (1976), A*P*E (1976), and Mighty Peking Man (1977).
376 pages, Paperback
First published March 14, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 13, 2020
More than just a history of Kong films that didn't get made, this excellent book is also a history of the bizarre influences the big ape has exercised over world culture since 1933. I had heard of some of these lost projects -- most notably the Jim Danforth version that lost out to the De Laurentiis mess in 1976-- but others were entirely new to me. The writing is mostly solid and the research extensive. For anyone with an interest in big apes, lost cinema. or dinosaur films, this makes great reading.
August 6, 2025
Carl Denham worries the audience will think it's just a guy in a suit.
This line made me laugh out loud, perhaps in large part, to an inside joke about Bigfoot being a man in a suit that runs as skits on the Youtube channel.
As for the meat of the review....the actual book review. This is the first time I dipped my toes into the writing of John LeMay. I was lucky enough to meet him in Roswell, and we got to talking about Kaiju films, and of course I had to pick this one up. Kong as a character is super nostalgic to me, as I remember watching the original 1933 film with my late Papou Joel Weissman. I think the level of "lost" or "unknown" a film is to the reader depends on the level of their knowledge of film. For someone like me, who loves monster/kaiju films I definitely recognized some projects...I pry gotta credit A.P.E. to Brandon Tenold. But still others were fresh information to me, IE Creation, the film about the journey with Kong from Skull Island to NY, and Kong fighting Orca??? Which how would that even work, lol. I really enjoyed this book, I always looked forward to picking it up and honestly, some of the unmade films gave me ideas of films I would like to create. I think if you love film, filmmaking, history and of course Kong himself..you need to pick this one up!
Overall 9.0/10.0
This line made me laugh out loud, perhaps in large part, to an inside joke about Bigfoot being a man in a suit that runs as skits on the Youtube channel.
As for the meat of the review....the actual book review. This is the first time I dipped my toes into the writing of John LeMay. I was lucky enough to meet him in Roswell, and we got to talking about Kaiju films, and of course I had to pick this one up. Kong as a character is super nostalgic to me, as I remember watching the original 1933 film with my late Papou Joel Weissman. I think the level of "lost" or "unknown" a film is to the reader depends on the level of their knowledge of film. For someone like me, who loves monster/kaiju films I definitely recognized some projects...I pry gotta credit A.P.E. to Brandon Tenold. But still others were fresh information to me, IE Creation, the film about the journey with Kong from Skull Island to NY, and Kong fighting Orca??? Which how would that even work, lol. I really enjoyed this book, I always looked forward to picking it up and honestly, some of the unmade films gave me ideas of films I would like to create. I think if you love film, filmmaking, history and of course Kong himself..you need to pick this one up!
Overall 9.0/10.0
May 17, 2019
Fascinating and Informative!
I can't believe I paid so little for this excellent book, as it's chockful of information pertaining to--well, if the film or film concept involved an ape and a jungle--it's included here! The author, as with his previous book on Japanese giant monster films, shows boundless enthusiasm in his work and the amount of research and detail involved is almost mind-boggling. An incredible resource for fans of King Kong and his many relatives. I've read extensively about films of this genre for decades and expected to learn little I didn't know before opening the book--boy, was I wrong!
I did spot a fair number of typos and one misspelling ( "Joel McCray"), which I hope can be corrected in a subsequent edition. A book this well done deserves it.
Highly recommended!
I can't believe I paid so little for this excellent book, as it's chockful of information pertaining to--well, if the film or film concept involved an ape and a jungle--it's included here! The author, as with his previous book on Japanese giant monster films, shows boundless enthusiasm in his work and the amount of research and detail involved is almost mind-boggling. An incredible resource for fans of King Kong and his many relatives. I've read extensively about films of this genre for decades and expected to learn little I didn't know before opening the book--boy, was I wrong!
I did spot a fair number of typos and one misspelling ( "Joel McCray"), which I hope can be corrected in a subsequent edition. A book this well done deserves it.
Highly recommended!
December 20, 2021
This book is a really good overview of the Kong franchise and its various rip-offs, spoofs, and imitators. It has a lot of interesting behind the scenes information and offers coverage of even the most obscure Kong wannabes, such as the 'spoof' Queen Kong, which quickly disappeared from theatres after a lawsuit from the makers of the 1976 Kong remake. Highly recommended.
May 25, 2019
I enjoyed this book a lot, even though honestly it has quite a few shortcomings... many of which were also in LeMay’s other Kaiju books I’ve read so far. Still, this book is impressively ambitious and enjoyable to read and digs up a lot of interesting trivia. Great for Kong nerds!
June 9, 2019
Kong
A thoroughly researched work of love looking at the many appearances of King Kong and just about all giant apes. Enough to be interesting but not so much as to bore
A thoroughly researched work of love looking at the many appearances of King Kong and just about all giant apes. Enough to be interesting but not so much as to bore
December 31, 2022
Not What You Think
I bought this, like most I'm sure expecting a guide if lost and forgotten Kong films. Not too much to ask since it's literally the title of the book. That's not what this is. In the author's own words, "some of the films in this book are not the least bit lost" but he "couldn't resist a sensational title". This is revealed the 1st page. "Some" should have actually been "most" since VERY little in this book is lost (only 2 films lost in Hiroshima) and very little is even obscure. Most of the book is about the battles leading up to the original Kong and it's remakes getting made. He even dedicated an entire chapter to the 1976 films slightly extended tv version cut; this after he'd already covered the 1976 theater cut in depth. Not really Lost at all. It's well written, and the author knows his stuff, but ultimately it nothing the Kong fanatic probably doesn't already know, and nothing the causal fan looking for bad giant monkey films actually cares about.
I bought this, like most I'm sure expecting a guide if lost and forgotten Kong films. Not too much to ask since it's literally the title of the book. That's not what this is. In the author's own words, "some of the films in this book are not the least bit lost" but he "couldn't resist a sensational title". This is revealed the 1st page. "Some" should have actually been "most" since VERY little in this book is lost (only 2 films lost in Hiroshima) and very little is even obscure. Most of the book is about the battles leading up to the original Kong and it's remakes getting made. He even dedicated an entire chapter to the 1976 films slightly extended tv version cut; this after he'd already covered the 1976 theater cut in depth. Not really Lost at all. It's well written, and the author knows his stuff, but ultimately it nothing the Kong fanatic probably doesn't already know, and nothing the causal fan looking for bad giant monkey films actually cares about.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews