King Kong Meets Prometheus

*King Kong Meets Prometheus (キングコング 対 プロメテウス Kingu kongu tai purometeusu,King Kong vs. Prometheus*

*)* is an unmade kaiju film planed by Ishirō Honda.

## History

The film had its roots in an earlier concept for a new *King Kong* feature developed by Willis O'Brien, animator of the original stop-motion Kong. Around 1960, O'Brien came up with a proposed treatment, *King Kong Meets Frankenstein*, where Kong would fight against a giant Frankenstein Monster in San Francisco. O'Brien took the project to RKO to secure permission to use the King Kong character. During this time, the story was renamed King Kong vs. the Ginko when it was believed that Universal had the rights to the Frankenstein name (it actually only had the rights to the monster's makeup design by Jack Pierce). O'Brien was introduced to producer John Beck, who promised to find a studio to make the film (at this point in time, RKO was no longer a production company). Beck took the story treatment and had George Worthing Yates flesh it out into a screenplay. The story was slightly altered and the title changed to King Kong vs. Prometheus, returning the name to the original Frankenstein concept (*The Modern Prometheus* was the alternate title of the original novel). Unfortunately, the cost of stop-motion animation discouraged potential studios from putting the film into production. After shopping the script around overseas, Beck eventually attracted the interest of the Japanese studio Toho, which had long wanted to make a *King Kong* film. After purchasing the script, they decided to replace the Frankenstein creature with Godzilla to be King Kong's opponent and would have Shinichi Sekizawa rewrite Yates's script. *47 Samurai*, *Lonely Lane*, and *Born in Sin*. John Beck's dealings with Willis O'Brien's project were done behind his back, and O'Brien was never credited for his idea. Merian C. Cooper was bitterly opposed to the project, stating in a letter addressed to his friend Douglas Burden, "I was indignant when some Japanese company made a belittling thing, to a creative mind, called *King Kong vs. Godzilla*. I believe they even stooped so low as to use a man in a gorilla suit, which I have spoken out against so often in the early days of *King Kong*". In 1963, he filed a lawsuit to enjoin distribution of the movie against John Beck, as well as Toho and Universal (the film's U.S. copyright holder) claiming that he outright owned the King Kong character, but the lawsuit never went through, as it turned out he was not Kong's sole legal owner as he had previously believed.

## Plot

Prometheus appears being shipped from Nazi Germany, Nazi officers confiscate the body of the monster and ship it to japan (for unknown reasons)

King kong is in japan attacking a city Prometheus escapes and ends up battling king kong.

## Nicknames

* King Kong vs. Godzilla (Lost Film)
* King Kong vs. Prometheus

* King Kong vs Frankenstein

## Prometheus

Prometheus, in versions of Greek mythology, was the Titan who created mankind in the image of the gods that could have a spirit breathed into it at the behest of Zeus. Prometheus then taught man to hunt, but after he tricked Zeus into accepting "poor-quality offerings" from humans, Zeus kept fire from mankind. Prometheus took back the fire from Zeus to give to man. When Zeus discovered this, he sentenced Prometheus to be eternally punished by fixing him to a rock of Caucasus, where each day an eagle pecked out his liver, only for the liver to regrow the next day because of his immortality as a god.