SDCC 2016: Tom Hiddleston talks ‘Kong Skull Island’ shoot, practical locations

While attending San Diego Comic-Com, Tom Hiddleston previewed Kong: Skull Island and spoke with Deadline about his many projects.

“I loved making Kong: Skull Island. It was a completely unique experience. Chiefly, I think, because it felt like such as heavyweight cast. There’s so many people from so many different backgrounds and with so many different skill sets. And we traveled to these extraordinary locations to the ends of the Earth where nature is at its most beautiful and terrifying. And that was, I think, the genius of Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ pitch was an encouragement to shoot in real places and to make Skull Island out of parts of our planet that are absolutely breathtaking and remote. Where you could believe that Kong as a myth could originate. And the other thing to say about it is that part of his original idea was that he wanted to set it in the ’70s.”

Joining Hiddleston in Skull Island, and in person at SDCC are rie Larson, John Goodman, Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell. Hiddleston praises the cast and amazing locations for this new project.

“Because it was a world where technology is not what it is now and that perhaps mankind might believe there were mysteries in the South Pacific that were still unsolved. There’s an organization in the film called Landsat, which uses satellite technology that we’re all now familiar with, with applications like Google Earth. Skull Island takes place at the very, very early development of that technology. So, the Western governments are already trying to put together, as it were, a God’s eye view of the Earth and there is one place they can’t quite figure out. They send a crew of soldiers and scientists to check it out — and well, the rest remains to be seen.

“But it was such an epic shoot and I know from the stuff I’ve already seen and the experience of doing it that you really feel the vividness of it. I think, you will really feel how this was not shot on a soundstage, how this was shot in the jungles and the volcanic valleys of Hawaii, Australia, and Vietnam.”

Check out the full interview at Deadline HERE

Skull Island also stars Samuel L. Jackson, John C. Reilly, Tian Jing, John Ortiz, Thomas Mann, Shea Whigham, Toby Kebbell, and Eugene Cordero.

Kong: Skull Island opens in theaters on March 10, 2017.

Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth reprise their roles in Thor: Ragnarok, which arrives in theaters on November 3, 2017.

Here’s the official synopsis for Kong: Skull Island:

Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ “Kong: Skull Island” reimagines the origin of the mythic Kong in a compelling, original adventure from director Jordan Vogt-Roberts. In the film, a diverse team of explorers is brought together to venture deep into an uncharted island in the Pacific—as beautiful as it is treacherous—unaware that they’re crossing into the domain of the mythic Kong.