Jurassic World's Derek Connolly Re-Writing Kong: Skull Island

Jurassic World's Derek Connolly Re-Writing Kong: Skull Island
As the movie races towards production

18 August 2015 | Written by James White | Source: The Hollywood Reporter



The script for Kong: Skull Island is going through one of those typical phases that most of the big movies seem to suffer these days; call it Multiple Writer Syndrome. With the monster movie weeks away from shooting, Jurassic World’s Derek Connolly is coming aboard to take a pass at the screenplay.

Given that Universal and Legendary have high hopes for the movie – which sees a group of explorers including Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson and Corey Hawkins heading for the mysterious island in search of adventure and giant creatures – we suppose it make sense to call in one of the writers behind the year’s most successful film. Which just so happens to feature big beasties rampaging on an island.

Writers including Max Borenstein, John Gatins and Dan Gilroy have worked on the script already, so Connolly will likely just be polishing and shifting things around, especially in light of actors J.K. Simmons and Michael Keaton dropping out for scheduling reasons. Tom Wilkinson, John C. Reilly and Samuel L. Jackson have all been mentioned as new cast members, but there’s no official word on them yet.

Jordan Vogt-Roberts is directing the film, which is gearing up now and should be rolling cameras by October at the latest, kicking off in Hawaii before heading to Iceland and Vietnam.

Connolly often works with Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow, and indeed has written sci-fi picIntelligent Life with him. He’s also toiled on Monster Trucks and will likely reunite with Trevorrow for the Jurassic World sequel, which they’ll write, but has yet to lock in a director.