EXCLUSIVE: King Kong, the biggest beast of them all, is about to supersize in the book world.
The King Kong of Skull Island brand is to become the initial focus for World Builder Publishing, a new division of Dannie Festa’s management and franchise building company World Builder Entertainment.
World Builder will partner with DeVito ArtWorks and the Merian C. Cooper Estate to develop books that expand the King Kong of Skull Island universe. DeVito is the creator, author and artist behind King Kong of Skull Island, which is a licensed rewrite of Merian C. Cooper’s original King Kong film from 1933.
“We’re thrilled to have World Builder Publishing as our publishing partner,” said DeVito. “Their expertise in franchise-building and storytelling makes them the perfect home for Kong’s next chapter. Extending World Builder’s reach into the often frustrating and slow-moving world of traditional publishing brings a welcome alternative to the industry.”
World Builder Publishing will seek to offer authors a fast track to market, while exploring film and television adaptation potential. In that sense, it’s similar to the multi-platform development partnership between publishing Gungnir and Storyteller Media that we reported first on earlier today.
World Builder founder Festa, known as executive producer of the Trolls franchise, and his colleague Nick Terry will lead World Builder Publishing, prioritizing “bold, original voices across all genres.”
“This is about more than just publishing books,” said Festa. “We’ve always been focused on nurturing intellectual properties that can thrive across multiple platforms and we’re passionate about collaborating with creators who have big ideas and want to see those ideas reach their full potential. Integrating publishing into our offerings enables us to create opportunities for our clients across various creative disciplines by bridging the gap between publishing and entertainment.”
World Builder’s current client list includes Strange Darling writer-director J.T. Mollner and publishers Markosia (Dark Mists) and Myth Works (Slugblaster).
The company’s screen slate includes a Disney+ series based on the King Kong of Skull Island franchise, which Deadline first revealed in 2022. That series, which has Atomic Monster on board and Paper Girls creator Stephany Folsom attached as writer, followed the Merian C. Cooper Estate teaming with DeVito to produce new novelizations that were used as source material for the series, along with the original book IP.
A live-action series, King Kong Skull Island, was in development at MarVista Entertainment and IM Global Television in 2017 with a different creative team, also based on Cooper’s King Kong and DeVito ArtWorks’ Skull Island, with Festa executive producing.
World Builder’s feature films Mercy Run and Revived from Danny McNair and Mike Gibson and Casey Tebo’s Saint Patrick, which Cross Creek Pictures is set to shoot in the summer. Overall, World Builder has more than 600 titles in its film and TV library.
