Merian C. Cooper's first vision for the film was of a giant ape on top of the world's tallest building, fighting airplanes. He worked backward from there to develop the rest of the story.
The film grossed $90,000 its opening weekend, the biggest opening ever at the time.
The trees and plants in the background on the stop-motion animation sets were a combination of metal models and real plants. One day during filming, a flower on the miniature set bloomed without anyone noticing. The error in continuity was not noticed until the film was developed and shown. While Kong moved, a time-lapse effect showed the flower coming into full bloom, and an entire day of animation was lost.
After completing her scenes, Fay Wray spent a day in the sound studio recording a series of screams she dubbed her "Aria of the Agonies."
For the scenes of Ann in Kong's hand, the hand was attached to a crane and raised ten feet. First a technician put her in the hand and closed the fingers around her. Then the hand was lifted for filming. She would later say her terror in those scenes was real. The more she struggled, the looser the hand's grip grew. When she thought she was about to fall, she had to signal Merian C. Cooper to stop filming.