Why we can't wait to see ''King Kong''

RELEASE DATE Dec. 14

WHY WE CAN’T WAIT The film that Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson has waited all his life to make is, without a doubt, this season’s 8 zillion-pound gorilla.

THE PREMISE You know the story: Ape meets girl (Naomi Watts, in the Fay Wray role of Ann Darrow); girl brings ape back to the big city; ape dies falling off the Empire State Building.

SOURCE The 1933 film written by Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace

THE BACK STORY You’d expect such an expensive, highly anticipated movie to keep production details under wraps, but much about the making of Kong has been made public in weekly video diaries that Jackson posted at kongisking.net. The director says there are plenty of surprises, though, like a sequence involving Shelob-like giant spiders that echoes a similar sequence cut from the 1933 movie. ”We’ve kept all the cool stuff secret,” he says.

BURNING QUESTION Can Jackson recapture the awe, wonder, and terror that moviegoers felt when seeing the original movie for the first time?

COME FOR The king-size spectacle

STAY FOR The human-size relationship between Ann and ape. ”How your partner affects you, how you work problems out — I know it sounds silly, but it’s what Kong and Ann have to deal with,” says Watts.