Long before the word franchise dominated Hollywood, King Kong stormed the Empire State Building and spawned a century of refurbishings. The gargantuan ape, who debuted in 1933, has been the subject of three American reboots, numerous sequels and spinoffs, an animated television series, multiple novelizations, video games, theme-park rides, an ABBA jam, a Sunset Boulevard joke and a Rocky Horror Picture Show lyric. This weekend, he will invade multiplexes once again.

King Kong is a preeminent emblem of our nostalgic popular culture, which tends to recycle the same stories with increasing regularity. Wowing audiences through pioneering visual effects, the original the first film to play two of New Yorks largest-capacity theaters at once was so beloved that Time magazine christened its 1952 re-release the movie of the year over such titles as Singin in the Rain, The Greatest Show on Earth and High Noon.