King Kong premiered in New York

On Thursday, March 2, 1933, RKO’s King Kong had its New York opening, playing simultaneously at the Radio City Music Hall and the nearby RKO Roxy theater. Between them the two houses offered ten shows a day across roughly 10,000 seats, and the picture sold out every one of them.

The draw was a single, unforgettable illusion: a giant ape brought to life through the pioneering stop-motion work of Willis O’Brien, who animated miniature models frame by frame and composited them with live actors including Fay Wray. The result felt impossibly real to audiences who had never seen anything like it.

Over 50,000 people packed in on the first day alone, helping set an all-time attendance record for an indoor event.

Grosses for the opening New York weekend reached about $90,000, and the film soon broke records in theaters nationwide. King Kong has since been recognized as a landmark of visual-effects cinema and was selected for the U.S. National Film Registry.