J.K. Simmons Going to SKULL ISLAND
Popular genre actor J.K. Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man pictures) will join Tom Hiddleston in the upcoming Kong: Skull Island.
The Legendary Pictures project, a tent pole film with a release date of March 10, 2017, will focus on the island home of King Kong. Originally scheduled for November 2016, the project was pushed back to make room for Zhang Yimou’s Untitled Great Wall Project, a story of an elite force making a last stand for humanity along China’s Great Wall.
Skull Island, while it takes place on the same island we’ve seen in other movies featuring King Kong, will establish a new time line and create a new origin story within Kong’s history. A team of explorers led by Hiddleston’s character will go exploring in the treacherous jungle. Searching for Kong? Looking for other mythical beasts? Script is by John Gatins and Max Borenstein, with Jordan Vogt-Roberts directing.
Simmons is just coming off of a critically-acclaimed performance in Whiplash, where he plays the mentor to a young drummer (Miles Teller), and has been on the Oscar radar since the film’s premiere at Sundance in January.
Genre fans will know him best as the irascible editor of the Daily Bugle in the three Spider-Man films directed by Sam Raimi, along with the animated Avengers Assemble, a performance many wished he would repeat in the Marc Webb reboot. He also is the voice of Tenzin in The Legend of Korra.
