Tag: King Kong

In the cutting-edge and ever-expanding world of performance-capture roles on film, Andy Serkis remains the man to go to. He’s almost single-handedly turned an aspect of acting once thought to be fit only for stuntmen and tech geeks into a respected and (dare we say it) Oscar-worthy avenue of performance. Last year, Serkis saved a mostly humdrum summer with his showstopping performance as Caesar, the Spartacus-like simian of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” and he can currently be seen in director Steven Spielberg’s performance-capture feature “The Adventures of Tintin” as the seafaring Capt. Haddock. In December, Serkis will step back into his decade-old digital costume as Gollum in “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” Join us on Friday, Jan. 13 at 1 p.m. Pacific for a live chat with Serkis as he discusses his most famous film roles on ...

Los Angles Times television editor Martin Miller drops by the Hero Complex to review the new monkey business at Universal Studios Hollywood. This is about the 800-pound gorilla in the room or, in this case, the one shaking the tram. (Man, those things can take a beating; dinosaurs, earthquakes and Whoopi Goldberg.) It’s great that King Kong — this time in 360 3-D and with some special toothy guests, no less — is back on the list of star attractions at Universal Studios Hollywood. I, for one, missed the big, snorting palooka. But, you know, what about the little people? On opening weekend, we decided to conduct our own mini focus group, which consisted of my two sons — an 11-year-old eager to prove nothing scares him (except girls) and an 8-year-old who continues to derive great pleasure from exceeding ...

FIVE QUESTIONS: MATT AITKEN OF WETA On Tuesday, King Kong 360 3-D, which is billed as “the world’s largest 3-D experience,” makes its grand opening at Universal Studios Hollywood and, if the attraction lives up to the advance buzz, the park’s venerable tram tour will never be the same. The attraction’s creative team included Oscar-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson, who brought the world’s most famous ape back to theater screens in 2005, and the visual effects wizards at Weta, but the jungle spectacle is far more than moving pictures on a screen. To understand this new monkey business, I caught up with Matt Aitken, the visual effects supervisor at Weta Digital Ltd., for the latest installment of Five Questions. — Geoff Boucher     MA: It’s different than anything we’ve done before. The thing that we thought was great about it is it was a ...