Peter Jackson's King Kong Brought One of the Most Infamous Lost Scenes From the 1933 Original to Life

Peter Jackson’s epic take on King Kong is full of astounding setpieces and massive monsters, including the titular Eighth Wonder of the World. However, the most memorable part of the 2005 film, which is now streaming on Peacock, might be the disgusting, squicky sequence when Kong drops the protagonists down a deep crevice filled with gigantic bugs and other creepy crawlies.

These multi-legged denizens of the deep feast on several of the hapless humans with gusto, and it’s enough to give viewers a new phobia if they didn’t already dislike bugs. But, for fans of giant monsters and/or cinema history, the spider pit sequence in the ‘05 King Kong is extra special, because it brings to life a deleted, long-lost scene from the original 1933 King Kong.

The deleted 1933 King Kong scene that Peter Jackson brought to life

Just like he does in the ‘05 movie (and in the ‘76 one, for good measure), Kong shakes a bunch of sailors off of a log bridge to their doom in the ‘33 original. Early versions of that film featured shots where any sailors who survived the fall were preyed on by giant spiders, brought to life by the same stop-motion animation techniques that the great Willis O'Brien used to animate Kong. However, this sequence does not appear in the finished film — and there’s actually dispute about how much of the spider pit scene was shot or how finished it was.

Although there are stories about early audiences freaking out or leaving the theater upon seeing the spider attack, therefore prompting the scene’s removal, there are also reports that viewers found the spiders laughable. There’s also reason to believe it wasn’t ever screened publicly. Max Steiner, who scored King Kong, didn't write any music for the spider pit scene, so if audiences ever did see it, they were watching an incomplete version of the film. In any case, director Merian C. Cooper cut the scene from the final film because it disrupted the movie’s flow. 

No footage of this scene is believed to have survived, and, likely, nobody alive has ever seen it. Only a few bits of concept art and behind-the-scenes photos of test shots remain.

Jackson was coming off of the triumph of The Lord of the Rings trilogy when he made the ‘05 King Kong, but he got his start in movies as the director of several gleefully gross and gory horror movies in his native New Zealand. It’s no surprise that Jackson would be interested in the lost spider pit sequence and its allegedly too-disturbing-for-audiences legacy. In his movie, when Kong knocks Adrian Brody and Jack Black’s characters (plus a bunch of ill-fated nameless sailors) off of the log bridge, they encounter all sorts of horrible critters. Giant spiders, crickets that are bigger than your head, jumbo versions of those creepy cave scorpions, and worst of all the toothy, leech-like bloodworms that eat Andy Serkis’ character alive. It’s awful and disgusting… and it’s incredible cinema. 

By letting the spider pit scene play out in all its horrifying glory (at least until Kyle Chandler’s character swoops in and rescues the survivors), Jackson gave monster fans a chance to see what might have been. He did more than just create a modern version of the spider pit for his movie, though; Jackson and Wētā Workshop, the company behind King Kong’s special effects, also made a version of what they believed the original 1933 scene would have looked like using descriptions of the sequence and special effects that would’ve been used at the time. This recreation of the lost 1933 spider pit scene is available as a special feature on some DVD releases of the original movie. 

The awesomely upsetting triumph of the ‘05 spider pit scene, along with all the other wonders and horrors of Skull Island that Jackson brought to life for the acclaimed remake, is available to stream on Peacock right now.