Peter Jackson’s version of Kong is more of a retelling than a remake, keeping the tale in its original time and setting – the Depression era of 1933 – in order to preserve the climax of the film, which is the iconic sequence of the biplanes attacking Kong on top of the Empire State Building – as well as also pushing the film into a slightly fantastical realm.  

“I think there’s no real sense of mystery or discovery in the world anymore today. Yet in the 1930s, you could believe that there was one tiny, uncharted corner that hadn’t been discovered by man, this one tiny speck of an island on the ocean that could have slipped through the net,” explained Jackson in the film’s production notes.