With Kong: Skull Island still fresh in the pop culture consciousness, the giant ape has just announced another star turn — though it’s unrelated to his activities on the big screen. King Kong, an animatronics-laden musical written by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child‘s Jack Thorne, is heading to Broadway.
The show is described in its press release as “a contemporary take on the classic tale of beauty and the beast”, and as the New York Times points out, it’s a fresh version of the musical that opened in Australia nearly a decade ago. Originally, it was aiming for a stateside move in 2013. You might suspect that King Kong‘s elaborate special effects — including a 6m robotic puppet of you-know-who that runs on “automation, infrared technology, and multiple human performers,” per the Times — were the reason for the delay, but the minds behind the show actually wanted to tighten up its story before unleashing it on Broadway.
That’s how Thorne, who also wrote the acclaimed stage version of Let the Right One In, got involved, further tweaking a script that’s “based on the novel of the original 1933 screenplay,” according to its press release. The show has a score by Marius de Vries and songs by Eddie Perfect, but unfortunately Kong doesn’t sing any of them. Who needs to croon a tune, however, when you’re the biggest goddamn high-tech monkey puppet in New York City?
King Kong will open in the spring of 2018 at the Broadway Theatre.