The Missing Ingredients in ‘King Kong the Musical’
King Kong is a character firmly entrenched in American myth. Ever since he first swatted at biplanes from atop the Empire State Building in 1933, Kong has been part of American culture. He is iconic and instantly recognizable, and he is part of our nomenclature. To be labeled “King Kong” is to be at the top of the food chain, the undisputed master of your domain.
Kong’s story has been told on screen three separate times — 1933, 1976, and 2005 — and each version was a box office hit. There have been spin-off films, cartoons, books, comics, and so forth. The most recent Kong film adventure, 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, which played sort of like “King Kong meets Apocalypse Now,” was a big fat hit that will soon lead us into Legendary Entertainment’s Monsterverse, a world where King Kong and Godzilla will soon bump heads.
With Kong’s classic status in American cinema secure and his popularity resurgent, it would seem that the only world left for King Kong to conquer is Broadway…
…said No One ever.
King Kong the Musical is for real. It’s happening now. I saw it. This is not a joke. Many years ago, if someone uttered the words, “King Kong the Musical,” you might have thought it was a gag, like when The Simpsons did “Stop the Planet of the Apes, I Want to Get Off!” But there really is a…
