Why Peter Jackson went to Ubi

By Ellie Gibson Published 25 October, 2005

Loves BGE, no fan of EA.

There's not long to go now till Peter Jackson's King Kong hits our cinemas - and our games consoles, courtesy of good old Ubisoft. But how come EA, which did the Lord of the Rings games, hasn't picked up the honours?

Because Jackson doesn't think much of them, according to an article in the New York Times: "Close associates" are quoted as saying the director "chafed" in his dealings with the publisher during the making of the LotR games.

"Electronic Arts was not interested in input from the filmmaker," Jackson's manager told the newspaper. He went on to say that despite this, the games were later marketed as if he were closely involved.

An EA spokesperson responded by telling the Times that "the access given by Mr Jackson for the game was 'above and beyond expectations'."

That's as may be, but for the King Kong tie-ins Jackson turned instead to Ubisoft and Michel Ancel, director and designer of Beyond Good and Evil - of which Jackson is a huge fan.

Ancel's 30-strong team swelled to 80 for the development of the King Kong titles, which have a budget of more than $20 million. Jackson will take a portion of the game's profits, but they're not saying how much.

The team flew to New Zealand in April of last year to meet Jackson, who told them his plans for the plot and described the way various scenes would appear on screen. They also got to see sketches of Kong's home, Skull Island, drawings of creatures that aren't going to feature in the film - such as giant bats - and of course the monkey himself.

"He showed gestures of Kong and explained how Kong moved," Ancel told the NY Times.

"It was like an interview with Kong himself."

Producer Xavier Poix added: "Peter told us he wanted King Kong to be intuitive to the player; to give him the pleasure to feel the power of Kong. He said, 'Hey, it's a gorilla. Just make him move like a gorilla.'"

Jackson was insistent that "Everything on the screen had to be in that world," according to Poix - so no health meters and the like; instead, the screen goes red each time you're attacked. Jackson also came up with the idea of supplying the player with ammo by having an airplane dropping it from overhead, along with various other concepts which he conveyed to the team via regular email contact throughout the game's development.

It all sounds rather exciting, if you ask us, so roll on release day - November 17 for the PC, PS2, Xbox and Gamecube versions, and December 2 for the Xbox 360. The DS, GBA and PSP titles arrive on December 9.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (39) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Razz #1 6 years ago

    THIS! Is how movie tie-ins should be made!

  • Roamer #2 6 years ago

    That's it Peter, sock it to the man!

  • apolloscollapse #3 6 years ago

    It would be funny it is sucked copious amounts of ass though.

    Not that its likely.

  • BEAR-ONE #4 6 years ago

    / Waits for XBOX360 to be dropped by airplane flying overhead.../





    /Waits some more.../

  • Huntcjna #5 6 years ago

    The xbox demo is bloody great (specifically the kong bit) and it really pushes the hardware my hopes are indeed high.

  • Tonka #6 6 years ago

    Electronic Arts was not interested in input from the filmmaker
    That bodes well for Steven Spielberg games...

  • malteaserhead #7 6 years ago

    yep... good demo ... liked running around as kong too. some of it almost felt a bit like prince o persia (?) surprising.

  • MoFo #8 6 years ago

    Looking forward to buying a game without feeling part of my soul has been lost forever.

  • Blerk #9 6 years ago

    /waits for EA to buy Ubi

  • kangarootoo #10 6 years ago

    " /waits for EA to buy Ubi"

    The day that happens I'm going to.... errr...... winge a bit on these pages and then zip it and drink my coffee in memory of those lost.

  • Blerk #11 6 years ago

    Pretty much like every other day, then. :-)

  • beep #12 6 years ago

    "It was like an interview with Kong himself."

    Best quote ever.

  • Freek #13 6 years ago

    I think Spielberg recognizes a good money maker when he sees it, probably just looking to make some cash to invest in his next movie(s).

  • Retroid #14 6 years ago

    "and of course the monkey himself"

    Ape. APE!

    Is it so hard to tell the difference between something WITH a tail and WITHOUT a tail...?

  • Psi #15 6 years ago

    uwe boll speilburg now jackson... cept boll makes films outta games the others make games outta their films(ish)

    does that mean boll could make a film based on the game of speilburgs new films? world gone madddd

  • Fatfish #16 6 years ago

    Let's just hope that Ubi have (as I suspect) far too much pride in their work (both previous and new titles) to sell to a very superficial and 'plastic' company such as EA. Could you imagine if they did: RainbowSix4 2006 - The (roadblocked and booby trapped) Road to Wembley. Followed by King Kong 2007, much the same as this version - only with the ability to substitute players mid game, model your own jungle costume in the 'create-a-player' options and the addition of a multiplayer online co-op mode (that rarely works because the likelihood of getting 2 people simultaneously on the same EA server is about the same as seeing EA release an original game concept!).

    I'd rather eat my own left foot than see that happen!.......not that eating my own left would make any difference, but it's the principle here people......

  • kangarootoo #17 6 years ago

    " Pretty much like every other day, then. :-)"

    lol. You know me too well.

  • kangarootoo #18 6 years ago

    Too true. Its all about return on shares. The shareholders aren't evil people, they are simply investors. They care more about their profit than they do about games, which is kind of reasonable I would say.

    I wonder if any of us had half a million quid invested in a company we would care as much about the integrity of the games as we do currently?

  • Gurgeh #19 6 years ago

    In other film news, top of the US box office last week was... Doom

    http://edition.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movi es/10/23/boxoffice.ap/index.html

    "Though distributor Universal expects to make its money back on "Doom," the studio had hoped for a bigger opening weekend, said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution"

  • Furbs #20 6 years ago

    Film audiences are down 16% on this week last year and they are wondering why...

  • Fatfish #21 6 years ago

    disc/kanga - Of course you're quite right about the stakeholders. One can only hope nothing like that actually happens - it's never a good thing to see an individual and creative company like Ubi get gobbled up by huge (usually American) lacklustre outifts like EA. And I stand by my words..........I will eat my left foot if it ever happens!

  • Roamer #22 6 years ago

    The shareholders aren't evil people, they are simply investors. They care more about their profit than .....(insert anything here).

    Some would say, that this is one of the most subtle ways to be evil in the western world. -"As long as I get my moolah, eh?"

  • urban #23 6 years ago

    nice job pete.

    :D

  • Feanor #24 6 years ago

    Some would say, that this is one of the most subtle ways to be evil in the western world. -"As long as I get my moolah, eh?"


    So how much of your salary do you donate to chairty? 20%? 50% maybe?

  • Tyronne #25 6 years ago

    so with E.A interested in Eidos and Ubi,would that leave anyone of any interest left?

  • Trowel #26 6 years ago

    Nice demo save for the shit camera, and I don't care if Petey thought a complete lack of onscreen displays would make it more authentic - how close am I to dying??

  • Kami #27 6 years ago

    Another BG&E fan.

    Come on Ubi, you KNOW it makes sense...

  • nightsparkle #28 6 years ago

    i don't believe a word of it. as much as it hurts me to say, most people think it's normal to leave their ideals for what they are (if they even still have them) and just go for the highest bidder. That's most likely how jackson/ universal did it. Jackson isn't from the gaming generation. what's the chance he stumbled upon BG&E?

  • ClansOfIntrigue #29 6 years ago

    Why do people always think having a film director or actor "closely" involved with a game is a good thing? Do we have so little faith in our game designers that we suspect any random bloke with a camera can do a better job? I'm much more excited by the fact that *Michael Ansel* has been closely involved with the game, personally!

  • Xerx3s #30 6 years ago

    I got a great idea for the film! Mr KK terrorising ea hq! The grand finale is a happy end where ea is utterly destroyed and animal rights activists locked him away for his own good in a conrete 4by4 cell, with jack thomson of course.

    /gets bored
    /wanders off

    ea. Suck at everything.

  • anthule #31 6 years ago

    ClansofIntrigue - normally, they dont. But this is a movie tie-in game, and so things are rather different. With a movie game, there are two criteria. First, the game itself must actually be pretty good, but secondly it must do a decent job of recreating the atmosphere and feel of the movie. Thats why people buy movie tie-ins, because they want to feel like they're "in the film". Having the director closely involved is great because he's the one person who really understand what makes the film what it is, what makes it special - and so can help the games designers recreate that.

    Of course, its still then up to the the games designers to actually make a decent game out of it. On that front, we'll just have to wait and see...

  • bootsy_NL_30 #32 6 years ago

    now all we need is a Braindead game! HE can explain exactly how a lawn mower should react when applied to a zombies head!

  • Yossarian #33 6 years ago

    Another BG&E fan.

    Come on Ubi, you KNOW it makes sense...
    Sadly it doesn't make much financial sense right now given sales of the original. But if they could get Jackson to make a movie of it... *scratches chin*

  • kangarootoo #34 6 years ago

    BG&E sold perfectly well. It made profit, it just didn't make it all in the first month. The perception that it bombed is just a myth (unless you compare it to high volume stuff that makes a fortune).

  • smelly #35 6 years ago

    "Stop requesting multiplayer in every single game even though it makes no sense to add it."

    Ah.. but it does.. marketting men love it! It gives them something else to put on the box.

  • kangarootoo #36 6 years ago

    Marketing sense and Common sense are as alike as potatoes and space shuttles.

  • Bru-Man #37 6 years ago

    "Nice demo save for the shit camera, and I don't care if Petey thought a complete lack of onscreen displays would make it more authentic - how close am I to dying?? "

    You get 2 hits then you're dead. Simple.

  • nightsparkle #38 6 years ago

    i've been playing terminator 3 : redemption and surprisingly, it was a good game, i had fun. the first movie tie in that's actually worth some money. it has nice simple gameplay, mostly trial and error. it could have even been a classic if the difficulty wasn't so toned down. it had a good fighting system, with great melee moves, some of which restored your health. for shooting it has auto aim, which i'm not a big fan of, but it does make shooting quick and easy. it worked quite well

  • Lagto_Soa #39 6 years ago

    I wish I was called Xavier Poix. Imagine how cool it would be to have your name begin and end with X. Even if you were also French.