Jungle Boogie

They Could Have Shot Their Monster Movie in a Green Screen Chamber. Instead,the Makers of Kong:skull Island Journeyed Into Some of Earth’s Most Far-flung Corners. And Empire Tagged Along, Every Glorious, Snake-infested Step of the Way.

- Nick De Semlyen

HONOLULU, HUWAII

SURROUNDED BY PRIMORDIAL jungle, lashed by rain and dressed for combat, Tom Hiddleston is trying manfully to explain The Crystal Maze to Brie Larson.

“It was a fantastic, zany television show from the 1990's on Channel 4 in the UK,” he ventures. “Presented by Richard O’Brien from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He wears leopard-skin tails and there are four zones and you have to get a crystal in every room...”

“Is it a reality show?” Larson cuts in. “A game show,” Hiddleston clarifies. “At the end you go into a big dome and have to grab tickets that are flying around. It’s impossible to stay calm, even though the calmer you are, the simpler it is.”

“That sounds intense,” Larson says. “My favourite show growing up was called Legends Of The Hidden Temple. There was a huge stone head that would talk. And if you get enough Pendants Of Life, you win a pair of Skechers.”

This unlikely conversation between the two A-list stars has been instigated by Hiddleston’s observation that the set they’re on today reminds him of the Aztec Zone from the Brit TV oddity. This does not do it justice. It’s Empire’s first day of five on Kong: Skull Island, and our introductory glimpse of Kong’s monster-plagued domain has not disappointed. Not least because right in front of us is a big bloody skull. The cranium of some long-deceased giant ape, it’s so large you could herd a cow through its eye-socket. The tableau around it is just as spectacular: nearby is a triceratops skeleton, while sundry other bones — many human — litter the ground. Green gas fizzes up from volcanic vents (fake); waterfalls plummet from mist-shrouded peaks (real).