James Wan, the filmmaker renowned for developing The Conjuring franchise, is swapping ghost movies for giant gorillas, as it’s revealed he is working on a new live-action King Kong series for the streaming service Disney Plus.
In something of a surprise move, Wan will move away from his horror movie roots to take on the monster movie icon King Kong. Wan has previously worked closely with Universal and has ties to the DCEU, so to see the director partner up with Disney is also something of a curveball. While his involvement with The Conjuring movies may not exactly scream family-friendly filmmaking, one would assume Disney is giving Wan the license to put his own spin on the legendary IP with this TV series.
According to Variety, the show will be a live-action drama series which will dive into the history of the beast and his home on Skull Island. This is one of many big and small screen endeavours starring the giant ape that are set to be released in the coming years, which is not at all confusing.
There is a sequel to the MonsterVerse version of the character, continuing the story from the Godzilla vs Kong action movie. That big screen adventure will be completely separate to Wan’s interpretation, which is more deeply rooted in the classic version of the massive monkey.
Netflix is also developing an anime series set on Skull Island, which is its own entity, too. Meanwhile, Apple TV Plus is working on its own live-action Godzilla series, which will be linked to the MonsterVerse.
Are you still with us? Great! If you can’t wait for all this Kong chaos, why not check out our list of the best disaster movies of all time. Or, if you want your next James Wan fix, here’s our guide to the Aquaman 2 release date.