The Frighteners
"The Frighteners" was regarded as a box office failure. Film critic Roger Ebert expressed disappointment stating that "incredible effort has resulted in a film that looks more like a demo reel than a movie". In February 1997, Jackson launched legal proceedings against the "New Zealand Listener" magazine for defamation, over a review of "The Frighteners" which claimed that the film was "built from the rubble of other people's movies". In the end, the case was not pursued further. Around this time Jackson's remake of "King Kong" was shelved by Universal Studios, partly because of "Mighty Joe Young" and "Godzilla", both giant monster movies, that had already gone into production. Universal feared it would be thrown aside by the two higher budget movies.