About that lost footage from '33 KONG rumor going around...
Published at: June 16, 2005, 8:44 p.m. CST by staff
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with another bit of rumor control regarding a bit that's starting to sweep the net about the lost "Spider Pit" scene from the 1933 KING KONG being found and included in the upcoming DVD being put out by Warner Bros. Here's one of the emails we got about it:
You may have already heard this…
From dvdfile.com…
There's a rumor going around that King Kong fans are going ga-ga for. There was a ‘Spider Pit' sequence in the film that was cut after just a few previews, and has been said to be lost ever since. But in putting the DVD set of the classic film together for a Fall release - to coincide with Peter Jackson's upgrade, of course - supposedly a part (if not all) of it has been found on a print in France. Again, this is not the kind of thing to get your hopes up for, but seeing as I nearly peed my pants upon hearing the news myself, I thought I'd send it on to you. Keep watching DVDFile for more updates…
This, understandably, got me very excited, but this rumor started with another bit that didn't survive as it spread around the net, apparently. This other bit said that Peter Jackson was having Weta Digital complete the partially found Spider Pit scene using CG that mimicked stop-motion animation. That sounded off to me (especially since he'd be using Universal's time and money on a Warner Bros project), so I contacted Jackson's group with the rumor.
I was told that this is not true, that Jackson's camp has been in close touch with the DVD people at Warners and while they can say a brilliant print was found for the transfer it doesn't include the Spider Pit scene. It does, however, include all of the censored scenes, which I believe would include Fay Wray being stripped by the big Ape. This might be where the confusion came from, people assuming that the Spider Pit scene was part of the censored scenes. Now the censored scenes have been around, but as part of this newly found print the scenes are bound to be in better condition than we've seen previoiusly.
So, bummer... I wish it was true. I'd love to see the Spider Pit sequence, but before you get too excited I thought I'd make sure to set the record straight.