Round about the same time, producers tried to snatch the director of the "fish movie" for another big budget creature feature: Dino De Laurentiis's incredibly ambitious, ultimately awful remake of King Kong. In the end the job went to John Guillermin (who?) (exactly), and the movie is better remembered for its absurdly large budget and the absolutely terrible animatronic ape it paid for, rather than as anything approaching a decent - or even watchable - film. Still, it was shorter than Peter Jackson's, so that's something. Imagine how different things might have been in the hands of Spielberg, however. Even when Bruce The Shark famously didn't play ball on the Jaws set he cleverly edited around it so you couldn't tell it was a useless lump of plexiglass, and he went on to be involved with some pioneering special effects on Jurassic Park. That crossed with his ability to tell human, empathetic stories would've made for a more interesting Kong, at least.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
