So King Kong’s going to be three hours.

This will bring it into the company of films like Titanic, that bloated, vapid wreck of a movie beloved by millions. It’s a big risk: long films are harder to sell to today’s fidgety audiences (I include myself in that group), and cinemas can schedule fewer screenings in a day.

But I reckon Jackson will pull it off. He can tell a story like few others, but it’s the sly humour he sneaks in that really gets me.

The first of Rings the other night on TV proved a surprisingly watchable experience. It had held up well. Not being a LOTR loony — a well-meaning teacher tried to get me interested in Form 3 by lending me a copy, which naturally ensured I’ve never read more than two pages — I find long, windy epics with long, windy monologues from people with long, straggly hair generally do nothing for my dyspepsia.

For Kong, the studio, Universal, was clearly expecting something around the two-hour-forty mark, like Fellowship of the Ring, and the price has gone up a third, to $US207m.

The increased length adds $US32m of the cost, which the studio says it’s splitting with Jackson, who’s getting $US20m to direct it (for my $13, he’s worth every penny, and more).

The NY Times says that Jackson appears to disagree; in an email he said he would pay the additional costs, mainly associated with extra digital-effects shots, himself. “Since Fran and I believed in the three-hour cut and wanted to take responsibility for the extra length, we offered to pay for these extra shots ourselves. That’s what we’re doing.” He did not say how much that would be, but said the extra effects shot would cost “considerably below $US32 million”. You say tomato …

Let’s hope people like me start spouting like people like Marc Shmuger, vice chairman of Universal Pictures.

“This is a three-hour feast of an event,” said Shmuger, who described the film as a tragic love story between the ape and Naomi Watts, who plays Ann Darrow, an actress. “I’ve never come close to seeing an artist working at this level.”