Disney Branded Television is in the (very) early stages of development on a live-action King Kong series for Disney+, Deadline reports.
Already attached are Stephany Folsom (creator of recent and STARBURST-approved Paper Girls, and who also worked on upcoming series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power) to write the script and executive produce with horror producer extraordinaire James Wan, Michael Clear, Rob Hackett, and Dannie Festa.
The Disney project is intended as a serialised adventure story that will return to Skull Island, exploring the mythology of King Kong’s origin story and the supernatural mysteries of his home. This would mark the first live-action series set in the Kong universe.
To be clear, this King Kong series will not be connected to the Legendary Monsterverse series also in development at Apple TV+. The Monsterverse also includes 2014’s Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and Godzilla vs. Kong. The Legendary universe only uses the ‘Kong’ part of the giant ape’s moniker due to a complicated and tangled web of rights over the iconic figure.
The Disney project will instead be based on the original 1933 American pre-code film by Merian C. Cooper, the IP from Cooper’s original books, and the more recent novelisations by artist Joe DeVito.