‘King Kong’ Live-Action Series In Works At Disney+ From Stephany Folsom, James Wan’s Atomic Monster & Disney Branded TV

EXCLUSIVE: An iconic monster is headed to Disney+. Disney Branded Television is in very early development on King Kong (working title), a series for Disney+ tracking the original story of the famous ape. Deals have just closed for the project, from James Wan’s Atomic Monster, which would mark the first live-action series set in the Kong universe.

Written by Paper Girls creator Stephany Folsom, King Kong is a serialized action/adventure drama that brings the classic monster story into the modern age, with a return to Skull Island and the dawn of a new Kong. The series will explore the mythology of King Kong’s origin story and the supernatural mysteries of his home based on IP from Merian C. Cooper’s original books and the new King Kong novelizations by Joe DeVito.

Folsom executive produces alongside Wan, Michael Clear and Rob Hackett for Atomic Monster and Dannie Festa and Marc Manus for World Builder Entertainment.

The Merian C. Cooper Estate had teamed up with artist Joe DeVito to produce new novelizations that are being used as source material for the series, along with the original book IP.

A live-action series, King Kong Skull Island, was previously in development at MarVista Entertainment and IM Global Television five years ago with a different creative team, also based on Cooper’s King Kong and DeVito ArtWorks’ Skull Island, with Festa executive producing. It did not come to fruition.

King Kong, a 90-year-old character with an entangled web of rights, has been the subject of a slew of movies, most recently featured in Legendary/Warner Bros.’ Monsterverse, which only uses the Kong part of the gorilla monster’s moniker for its titles: 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong, followed by a Netflix anime series, Skull Island.

Filmmaker Wan, whose TV producing credits include MacGyver and Swamp Thing, is repped by CAA, Stacey Testro International and Myman Greenspan Fox Rosenberg Mobasser Younger & Light.

Folsom, who created and executive produces Amazon’s sci-fi series Paper Girls and also worked on the streamer’s upcoming fantasy series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, is repped by Verve, Kaplan/Perrone and Yorn, Levine, Barnes.