Jurassic World Writer to Work on King Kong Spinoff

Kong: Skull Island, the forthcoming monster movie set in the world of King Kong, has landed a new writer. Derek Connolly helped Universal score a massive hit this summer with his script for Jurassic World, and now the studio has now drafted him in to work on their next big-budget creature feature.

The film has already been through a number of writers, including Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler), John Gatins (Flight) and Max Borenstein (Godzilla). It isn't known whether Connolly will be rewriting or merely polishing an existing script, but with production due to begin in October, the assumption is that much of the script is already in place.

Kong: Skull Island is to shoot on location in Hawaii, Vietnam, and Iceland, and is scheduled for a March 2017 release. It focuses upon a group of explorers who embark for adventures on a mysterious tropical isle--the title obviously suggests that the legendary giant ape will make an appearance, along with a host of other monsters. Thor's Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, and John C. Reilly star, with Jordan Vogt-Roberts directing.