King Kong Gets Marketing Boost Via Early DVD Release

Universal Pictures is taking a new approach to boost its upcoming King Kong film, releasing a DVD that documents that movie's making the day before it hits theaters.

King Kong gets an extra marketing boost via an early DVD release

The King Kong Peter Jackson's Production Diaries DVD marks the first time a movie studio will ship a behind-the-scenes look at a film before its theatrical release. The two-disc DVD set and companion book hits stores Dec. 13. The DVD set includes a first-person account of the film's eight-month production process. The companion book includes film set art and scenery and other movie-making facets.

Typically, the DVD version of a film follows its four- to six-month run in theaters.

Universal's King Kong follows the 1933 version of the original classic, in which a film director and leading lady search out the largest gorilla in the world and underestimate its size and strength. Dino DeLaurentis did a remake of the film in 1976 that put King Kong atop of the World Trade Center. King Kong opens in theaters nationwide on Dec. 14.