Well, the Empire State was about 40' high in the studio. King Kong was a little model about 2' high, and the scenery that he worked in was in proportion to his size.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
No film has captivated my imagination more than 'King Kong.' I'm making movies today because I saw this film when I was 9 years old.
Even as I was writing 'Empire State,' I knew there were more adventures for the main character, private detective Rad Bradley, to have. I also knew that the world was far larger than what I'd presented in book one.
I'd like to enter in and out of that big budget world, rather than staying in it. It's not the case that the bigger the film, the better it is.
Some of the smallest things on a smaller film, to me, are greater achievements than on a big film when you have the resources and the time and everything else.
While I was filming 'Kong' - and I don't play a very capable Army Ranger in 'Kong'; I play a completely different character - but we had a lot of Army Rangers there, former Army Rangers, and Navy SEALs, who were working on the movie with us for the other characters, for the Army guys in the movie.
I think they built Hollywood on the West Coast because they were always dreaming of a New World. When they arrived here, the only way to keep dreaming was to make movies. Film was the fourth dimension.
I'd always tried not to worry about the size of the role or the size of the film.
Walt Disney had always tried to get more dimension in his animation and when I saw these tapes, I thought, This is it! This is what Walt was waiting for! But when I looked around, nobody at the studio at the time was even halfway interested in it.
My films are never about what Hong Kong is like, or anything approaching a realistic portrait, but what I think about Hong Kong and what I want it to be.
I just took the idea that King Kong was too big for everything and reversed it and put George in a land of giants, which is basically what every kid goes through anyway - that, you know, the world is made for grownups, for tall people, for the giants.