“Kong,” which is running in Melbourne in a $30 million production, will take over the cavernous Foxwoods from another special-effects-laden show, the $75 million “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” which closed earlier this month.
Saturday, February 01, 2014
'King Kong' Will Stomp Onto Broadway in December, Producer Says
“Kong,” which is running in Melbourne in a $30 million production, will take over the cavernous Foxwoods from another special-effects-laden show, the $75 million “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” which closed earlier this month.
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This is going to be an interesting show, a giant puppet king kong that is one of the main characters so cool. This will definitely be an expensive show though. The puppet will require a lot to build, rig and maintain. I would definitely want to go see this as show. This will also be interesting to see King Kong as a musical, I am curious to see what they added in as songs and how they incorporated them to flow with the show.
I'm really curious to see how this show goes. I am especially curious about the Kind Kong puppet they showed in the picture. It doesn't appear to have many fluid or moving parts, so perhaps it will be animatronic or something of the sort. So far, I don't have SUPER high expectations for the show, especially because it was compared to Spiderman..
I am very curious to see what the budget for the production will be. I imagine it to be more like the war horse budget and less like Spiderman which this article keeps referring back to. Of course this depends on how the 20 foot gorilla is done and how crazy the team gets with other special effects. I hope that the gorilla on Broadway looks less plastic than the one in the photo, but that also depends on the design of the creature. What hopefully will separate this show from just a mass cluster-f**k of special effects is if it really picks and chooses what the production NEEDS and not just try and cram everything that Broadway has the money to accomplish into a show. There are also different styles the design team can come up with for presenting the show. I personally love the look of the black and white, old time feel 'King Kong' and would love to see that translated onto the Broadway stage. Hopefully 'King Kong' wont have a $75 million dollars to spend on making things/people fly and giant moving media walls (not hating on media by the way).
If the Australian company for the King Kong production has spent $30 million so far, I am curious how much they will spend additionally in the US. I wouldn't be surprised if shows generally cost more to mount in the US than other countries because of higher expectations on the part of the consumer. I understand magic doesn't exist but all the wires and hardware on King Kong are hard for me to look past. It is also disconcerting that the production is spending so much more than other Broadway productions and that it seems to be following in the steps of Spiderman.
Jon Ward told us about this musical at the very beginning of the year! The video we watched about the puppet was really cool but I remember someone saying it probably wouldn't leave Australia because of how enormous and elaborate the puppet is. They had to expand the theatre to fit King Kong inside. As far as the show itself goes, I would expect that it relies a lot on the puppet and may not be such a great musical, but that's not guaranteed. I don't know if I would see be interested in seeing the musical, but the puppet is definitely cool.
Much like media, life size and life like puppetry seem to be the hot thing right now. Last summer a friend of mine opened up a short promo video of King Kong to show me the puppetry aspects of it, as i was still very interested in what could be done with the technology after seeing Warhorse. While King Kong didn't seem as smooth or life like as Joey and the other horses due to its size and the technology required to move it, it looked like an exciting spectacle.
I am so excited for King Kong to come to broadway! I first saw footage of the production back in the fall and I thought it was so cool! I also think that the people in charge of this production were also very smart, and learned a lot from the people who tried to stage spiderman. First, they did not try to put this show on broadway immediately. They did a tryout somewhere else and now they are able to make changes to make it better before it gets to american audiences and media. I think their willingness to make changes is also i sign of their intelligence, especially for a production of this scale. Finally, the most important thing that I think they've done is to get the theater coming off spiderman. Spiderman spent so much of their budget refurbishing the building and adding support for the flying rigs and king kong will already have this in place for them, so they'll be able to do it a lot cheaper.
I am really excited to see this show. I have been following the Australian in production and it looks spectacular! They are definitely taking both the idea and concept behind puppetry to the next level. I am interested to hear what the music is like. Part of me is assuming that it is going to be very rock n' roll like which poses many challenges. I'm also very intrigued to see what the director and choreographer do and how they are able to not make the puppetry both steal the show and feel awkward.
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