Empire exclusively spoke to director Peter Jackson recently about a little film called King Kong that he has coming out this December, and he was in a talkative mood, revealing a treasure trove of information about this Christmas' biggest release. Here's what we learned - but beware of spoilers! 

- As of Thursday, he's still finishing editing the film, its sound mix and music.

- It's longer than the original film because there's more time on character, especially the relationship between Ann and Kong on the island.

- Jackson was concerned to ensure that Kong is a wild animal, not a friendly gorilla. "The danger of it would have been turning him into Mighty Joe Young. You get to like him, you get to meet him and from that point on everything is humanised. We haven't done that."

- They did change Kong after the teaser trailer, making him older, reducing his snaggle tooth in size and making his face narrower. "The one that ended up in the trailer I didn't think looked quite old enough. We did a lot of work aging his face, giving him a lot more scars, making him sort of craggy".

- One of the most difficult scenes was the Kong vs. 3 T-Rexes scene that rages across Skull Island, Jackson says, "It ended up about 300 shots long, about nine minutes. It has taken us the entire duration of the project to do. The fight sequence ended up very elaborate, involving Kong and the dinosaurs swinging like a pendulum over the chasm, entangled in these vines, and Ann is also entangled and Kong is trying to protect her. It all ends up in a swamp."

- The Empire State Building sequence was also difficult "psychologically, because it is such an iconic sequence" - but it was something that they started to storyboard before they even had a script.

- Replacing Howard Shore was "a horrible thing", but he "didn't click".

- They built a complete 1930s version of New York, using aerial photos and archive material, in order to have as much freedom to move around as possible.

- The culture on Skull Island has elements of Mayan, Aztec, Melanesian and Micronesian cultures – but Jackson thinks that the islanders have gone "crazy" from living there.

The film is out on December 15 from UIP. There'll be more from Jackson in the next issue of Empire and keep an eye out soon for a sneak preview of Empire's next cover.