看看imbd上一个网友给的6个原因
1) TOO UNORIGINAL.
Everybody already knew the story, either from the 1933 or the 1976 version. Also, the Jurassic Park films, Mighty Joe Young, Godzilla, Dinosaur, and other dinosaur movies/tv-series preceded it in recent years, so that the audience had already been satiated with dinosaurs and giant apes. This is a major reason why the box office results on the first days after its release were disappointing. Relatively few people were truly excited by the prospect of yet another King Kong (or dinosaur) movie. Remember also that the name of King Kong had been rather tarnished by the 1976 movie, and its disastrous sequel King Kong Lives, while the movie is not based on a popular novel or comic book series, so the built-in fanbase of Kong is rather small.
2) TOO LONG.
For many people, it's a major investment to go see a three-hour film at the theater, excluding commercials and previews. For King Kong, you'll have to leave home right after dinner, while it may be close to midnight by the time you get home. The length of the movie does not seem to fit the simplicity and familiarity of the story. It's not (thought to be) an epic story, like Titanic, LotR or Dances With Wolves. The excessive length of the film is a complaint found in many negative audience assertations, and even in many positive critical reviews of King Kong.
3) TOO UNBELIEVABLE.
If you look at the user comments on IMdB, you'll see that about a third of the reviews is highly negative. A common argument shared by many reviewers is that King Kong (2005) stretches the boundaries of believability too much. Not everyone shares this opinion, but it's evident that the word-of-mouth from general moviegoers is mixed, because many viewers were looking for (and expecting) a different, more realistic type of action drama.
4) TOO VIOLENT.
In addition, King Kong is too violent (and long-winded) to bring your youngest children along. Note that young children are the ones to whom the fairy-tale/fantasy aspects of the 2005 reimagining of King Kong may actually appeal the most. So the movie failed to draw in families with young children, who form the largest group of cinemagoers during the Christmas holiday period.
5) TOO HYPED.
The publicity campaign was designed to create a large hype prior to the release of the film. Before anyone had actually seen it, King Kong was already announced as the biggest box office hit of the year and a likely oscar candidate. As it's also a remake of a corny seventees film (in the eyes of the general public), the hype seemed untrustworthy to many people, to say the least. Then King Kong opened to disappointing box office figures and mixed audience reviews, while the oscar buzz soon faded. As a result, the initial hype has actually worked against the film. Audiences who have not seen King Kong yet, have lost faith in the movie. The Chronicles of Narnia has instead profited from a much quieter publicity campaign, in which word-of-mouth proved better than the initial buzz (including mixed reviews from critics) suggested. This is an important reason why Narnia has shown better legs than King Kong, after its opening performance was also slightly better on account of the built-in fanbase of the novel.
6) TOO OVERAMBITIOUS.
In my opinion, King Kong would have been much more successful at the box-office, if it had cut a significant part of the first hour of drama, reduced the violence level (and the number of innocent lives killed by Kong), and had been designed and quietly advertised as a genuine family movie for the Christmas holiday. All of the problems mentioned above would have been avoided, since children do not mind the inherent unoriginality and unbelievability of the (outdated) subject matter, and those kids would have dragged their parents along, even the more skeptical ones. But the filmmakers decided to go for an epic, oscarwinning drama instead ... and failed, because a King Kong remake simply never had the potential for such a feat, in spite of all the talent involved in the making of this picture. Somewhere along the way, Peter Jackson lost sight of the fact that when he fell in love with the original King Kong film, he was a highly imaginative child himself, and that at its fairy-tale heart, King Kong is (or at least over time has become) a children's story. Nothing more, nothing less.
