Editing Merian C. Cooper (section)

===''King Kong''===
{{main|King Kong (1933 film)}}
{{see also|King Kong#Ownership_rights}}
Cooper said that he thought of ''King Kong'' after he had a dream that a giant gorilla was terrorizing New York City. When he awoke, he recorded the idea and used it for the film.<ref name="picture box">{{cite web|last1=Krizanovich|first1=Karen|title=The big monkey with a big backstory: The Legend of King Kong|url=http://www.pictureboxfilms.com/blog/the-big-monkey-with-a-big-backstory-the-legend-of-king-kong|website=Picture Box Films|access-date=8 July 2016}}</ref> He was going to have a giant gorilla fight a [[Komodo dragon]] or other animal, but found that the technique of interlacing that he wanted to use would not provide realistic results.<ref name="living dangerously" />{{rp|194}}

[[File:King-Kong-1933-RKO.jpg|thumb|''King Kong'' movie poster]]
Cooper needed a production studio for the film, but recognized the great cost of the movie, especially during the [[Great Depression]]. Cooper helped [[David Selznick]] get a job at [[RKO Pictures]], which was struggling financially. Selznick became the vice president of RKO and asked Cooper to join him in September 1931, although he had only produced three films thus far in his career.<ref name="living dangerously">{{cite book|last=Cotta Vaz|first=Mark|title=Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong|date=2005|location=New York|publisher=[[Villard (imprint)|Villard Books]]|isbn=978-1-4000-6276-8|url=https://archive.org/details/livingdangerousl00vazm}}</ref>{{rp|202–203}} Cooper began working as an executive assistant at age thirty-eight.<ref name="Lasky1984">{{cite book|last1=Lasky|first1=Betty|title=RKO: The Biggest Little Major of Them All|date=1984|publisher=Prentice-Hall, Inc.|location=Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey|isbn=0-13-781451-8|url=https://archive.org/details/rkobiggestlittle00lask}}</ref>{{rp|74}} He officially pitched the idea for ''King Kong'' in December 1931. Shortly after, he began to seek actors and build full-scale sets, although the screenplay was not yet complete.<ref name="living dangerously" />{{rp|207–208}}

The screenplay was delivered to Cooper in January 1932. Schoedsack contributed to the film, focusing on shooting scenes for the boat sequences and in native villages, leaving Cooper to shoot the jungle scenes. In February 1933, the title for the film was registered for copyright.<ref name="living dangerously" />{{rp|218–223}} Throughout filming there were creative battles. Critics at RKO argued that the film should begin with Kong. Cooper believed that a film should begin with a "slow dramatic buildup that would establish everything from characters to mood&nbsp;..." so that the action of the film could "naturally, relentlessly, roll on out of its own creative movement", and thus chose not to begin the film with a shot of Kong. The iconic scene in which Kong is atop of the [[Empire State Building]] was almost canceled by Cooper for legal reasons, but was kept in the film because RKO bought the rights to ''[[The Lost World (1925 film)|The Lost World]]''.<ref name="living dangerously" />{{rp|229,231}}

Overlapping with the production of ''King Kong'' was the making of ''[[The Most Dangerous Game (film)|The Most Dangerous Game]]'', which began in May 1932. Cooper once again worked with Schoedsack to produce the film.<ref name="living dangerously" />{{rp|214}}

In the 1933 version of ''King Kong'', Cooper and co-director [[Ernest B. Schoedsack]] appear at the end, piloting the plane that finally finishes off Kong. Cooper had reportedly said, "We should kill the sonofabitch ourselves."<ref name="King kong book quote">{{cite book|last1=Wallace|first1=Edgar|first2=Merian C.| last2=Cooper|title=King Kong|date=2005|publisher=Modern Library|isbn=978-0-8129-7493-5|page=xiii|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pia9EEgSk00C&pg=PR13|access-date=8 July 2016}}</ref> Cooper personally cut a scene in ''King Kong'' in which four sailors are shaken off a tree trunk bridge by Kong, fall into a ravine, and are eaten alive by giant spiders. According to Hollywood folklore, the decision was made after previews in January 1933, during which audience members either fled the theater in terror or talked about the ghastly scene throughout the remainder of the movie. However, more objective sources maintain that the scene merely slowed the film's pace. Despite the rumor that Cooper kept a print of the cut footage as a memento, it has never been found.<ref>{{cite book |author=Morton, Ray |year=2005 |title=King Kong: the history of a movie icon from Fay Wray to Peter Jackson |location=New York, NY |publisher=Applause Theatre & Cinema Books |isbn=1-55783-669-8}}</ref> In 2021, film historian Ray Morton stated in an interview that, after looking through the films shooting schedule, he found no evidence the sequence was ever filmed.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://kaijutransmissions.podbean.com/e/the-legacy-of-kong-with-author-ray-morton/ | title=The Legacy of Kong with Author Ray Morton! &#124; the Kaiju Transmissions Podcast }}</ref> In 1963, Cooper argued unsuccessfully that he should own the rights to ''King Kong''; later in 1976, judges ruled that Cooper's estate  owned the rights to King Kong outside the movie and its sequel.<ref name="living dangerously" />{{rp|362; 387}} Selznick left RKO before the release of ''King Kong'', and Cooper served as production chief from 1933 to 1934 with Pan Berman as his executive assistant.<ref name="Lasky1984"/>

In the 2005 remake of ''[[King Kong (2005 film)|King Kong]]'', upon learning that [[Fay Wray]] was not available because she was making a film at [[RKO]], [[Carl Denham]] ([[Jack Black (actor)|Jack Black]]) replies, "Cooper, huh? I might have known."<ref name="cleveland">{{cite news|last1=Dawidziak|first1=Mark|title=Turner Classic Movies celebrates the 75th anniversary of 'King Kong'|url=http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2008/04/turner_classic_movies_celebrat.html|access-date=8 July 2016|agency=Cleveland.com|date=4 Apr 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161011004321/http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2008/04/turner_classic_movies_celebrat.html|archive-date=October 11, 2016|df=mdy-all}}</ref>