King Kong is bulletproof.

As filming began Monday in New Zealand on Peter Jackson's King Kong remake, the teeth-gnashing among the usually detail-fretting genre faithful was at a minimum.

One big reason: The big ape himself, maintaining a firm, if furry grip on audiences since 1933.

"The fact is that the [original] film has survived two very bad remakes. It's proven it's untouchable," says Nick Nunziata, Webmaster of Cinematic Happenings Under Development (CHUD.com). "It's not the end of the world if King Kong isn't done by the right people."

Not that Nunziata and others think Jackson and crew, including stars Naomi Watts, Jack Black and Adrien Brody, are the wrong people. On the contrary.

"I think [Jackson] means to go back to the origins and means to have a beautiful, romantic film," says Cynthia Erb, author of Tracking King Kong: A Hollywood Icon in World Culture. "I think he is a person who has a real passion for the film."

In a press conference in New Zealand last week, Jackson said he planned to keep things simple.

"At the end of the day," Jackson said, "it's about gorillas, it's about dinosaurs and lost islands."

Jackson's simple tale, about a beauty (Watts, in the role made iconic by the late Fay Wray) who charms a beast (to be articulated with the help of Andy Serkis, the human actor who gave a soul to the CGI machinations of Lord of the Rings' Gollum), will nonetheless be told on a grand scale. Budget estimates range from $130 million-$150 million. A high-profile Christmas 2005 release--Dec. 14, 2005, to be precise--is planned.

Befitting a man whose Rings trilogy netted 17 Academy Awards and nearly $3 billion at the worldwide box office, Jackson is getting to do things his way--setting the story in 1933, mounting the production in New Zealand, casting the off-beat Black and Brody, etc.

Says Nunziata: "It's not your grandfather's King Kong."

With any luck, it won't be your older cousin's King Kong, either.

The last time a press conference was held to hype a Kong remake the year was 1976 and the man talking about keeping things simple was producer Dino De Laurentiis, who vowed something to the effect of: "When my monkey die, everybody cry."

When De Laurentiis' King Kong opened in December 1976, critics were crying--crying foul. Erb, an associate professor of film and cultural studies at Indiana's Wayne State University, sums up the release with two words: "resounding failure."

Still, Kong survived, to be revived again in De Laurentiis' even more-loathed 1986 King Kong Lives. (The great ape also braved the likes of 1933's Son of Kong and 1963's King Kong vs. Godzilla.)

Both De Laurentiis films were set in present day. Erb says the 1976 movie, which traded the Empire State Building for the then-just-completed World Trade Center, and a Hollywood backdrop for the oil industry, made the mistake of trying to be too topical, with indirect references to Vietnam. (And one direct reference to Deep Throat.)

To Nunziata, keeping Kong in the 1930s feels right.

"It's a different world. Something like [the capture of] King Kong you could see it happening. You could see it being more of a big thing," Nunziata says.

The thesis of Erb's 1998 book is that an audience's response to Kong varies depending on what time period the film is viewed in.

Back in 1933, audiences saw the film as spectacle, featuring ground-breaking stop-motion effects by Willis O'Brien, but also, Erb says, as an allegory for the Great Depression.

"King Kong is sort of the spirit of the people attacking Wall Street where a lot of the frustration came from," Erb says.

Kong--taken from his homeland and shipped in chains across the sea--also has been linked to the struggle and history of African-Americans.

Erb says Jackson's Kong naturally will lend itself to something deeper than just a pure fantasy film.

"The character's powerful, but sort of a victim or martyr...And it's a human-like animal. [All this] creates a formula where the character has a lot of emotional power, [and is] open to a whole lot of meanings," Erb says. "You can project anything on to him."

Genre fans are projecting their hopes on the beast. To Nunziata, King Kong stands with Batman Begins as 2005's most-anticipated releases.

Whether Jackson's film delivers or not, the belief that Kong, despite getting offed at the end of his every cinematic adventure, will be fine prevails.

Says Erb: "One thing you can count on: King Kong keeps coming back."