3D attraction based on Peter Jackson’s Kong
This summer, King Kong makes his grand return to the Universal Studios Hollywood Theme Park. Only he won’t be the animatronic version of Kong that you may remember from the previous tours. Instead, Academy Award-winning director Peter Jackson has led a team of film and theme park ride experts in creating a 3D version of the iconic character to replace the Kong that perished in the June 2008 backlot fire.
The new Kong attraction is expected to open in the summer of 2010 and is being described as “the largest 3-D exhibit in the world.”
According to the LA Times, “If the new technology works as designed, park visitors will not only see Kong in three dimensions but also smell his banana breath, feel the gust of wind as he jumps over the guests and sense the ground quake when the ape engages a Tyrannosaurus rex in a life-or-death battle. The Kong attraction will be one stop on the park’s back lot studio tour ride.”
Jackson and his team of visual effects experts at Weta Digital have honed the 3-D technology on this year’s Golden Globe-winning film Avatar. Many of the technological advances developed for Avatar will be used in the Kong attraction.
Creatures and scenes from the movie you will see when entering the 200-foot-long soundstage include caves, giant bats and dinosaurs from Skull Island all on four-story-tall screens.
Universal Studios show producer Valerie Johnson-Redrow says, “We are going to bring you to Skull Island. We are going to bring you right in the middle of a knock- down, drag-out fight with a T. rex.”
Read more details on the attraction at the original article here.
Source: LA Times
