Trailer
Plot summary
Ten years after he fell from the World Trade Center, Kong remains comatose at the Atlantic Institute, where surgeon Dr. Amy Franklin watches over him. His heart is failing, and a computer-monitored artificial heart is the only way to keep him alive, but a blood transfusion must come first. Franklin doubts that any other animal has a blood type matching his. In Borneo, the adventurer Hank "Mitch" Mitchell finds a giant female ape of Kong's kind. She is captured, and Mitchell dubs her Lady Kong and offers her blood for the operation. Franklin objects to the risk, but the institute accepts. The transfusion and transplant narrowly succeed, and Kong revives, sensing Lady Kong nearby. When the institute tries to move her, Kong breaks free and frees her, and the two escape into the wilderness.
Cast
- Frank Maradenas Dr. Benson Hughes
- Robin Cahallas Mazlansky
- Marc Clementas Crew Chief
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about King Kong Lives (1986)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- DEG notified the critics Ebert and Gene Siskel that they were allowed to show snippets of the film on TV in their native Chicago, but were forbidden to show the same snippets on their nationally broadcast series At the Movies unless they promised to give positive reviews, which the pair refused to agree to.
- Actor Peter Goetz received a residual cheque from the film for three cents, and decided to frame it as a tribute rather than ever cash it.
- The film was a success in the Soviet Union, where it sold 53.6 million tickets in 1988, becoming the top-grossing foreign film of the year and one of the top 15 highest-grossing foreign films of all time there.
- Steve Pressfield said Dino De Laurentiis was skeptical about a female Kong, telling him "No one is going to believe a female ape", until Pressfield answered, "Dino, he had to have a mother", and De Laurentiis replied, "By God, you're right, I never thought of that. There can be a female."
- The film earned 3.7 times its budget but still lost money because of its marketing costs, and that failure, along with films such as Tai-Pan, led to the bankruptcy of De Laurentiis's company.
