When Does "King Kong Lives" (1986) Take Place?
"King Kong Lives" (sometimes released as "King Kong 2") is an adventure horror (kaiju) film written by Ronald Shusett with Steven Pressfield and released December 19th, 1986.
It takes place in the year:
We know this because the film's opening repeats the entire final sequence from the previous film, "King Kong" (1976), then follows it with a place and time setting title card over the first original footage reading "Atlanta Institute, Georgia" and "Ten Years Later". The previous film takes place in 1978 AD.
1988 AD
We know this because the film's opening repeats the entire final sequence from the previous film, "King Kong" (1976), then follows it with a place and time setting title card over the first original footage reading "Atlanta Institute, Georgia" and "Ten Years Later". The previous film takes place in 1978 AD.
1978 + 10 = 1988.
The following narrative takes place over a matter of “months” so we can assume it is all within 1988 AD.
It has been retroactively absorbed into the MonsterVerse Universe at a chronologically early place (a second chronological film to feature King Kong) and can be watched at its timeline point, or as an extended flashback, along with a version of "King Kong", before "Godzilla vs. Kong" (2021) [with or without the "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" (2023) TV show].
