And yet the DVD sales indicate that many people DID like Kong. Although I think there is a "Home movie" box office as well as a theatrical one.
Now you're just starting to recycle the same ol' argument over and over again. You can't pinpoint exactly WHO was fired, and you offer a lot of speculation and theory more than anything else.
I think, above all, this may be an indication of a trend towards the future. People have been talking a lot about the box office, and a general decline in movie attendance (the ominous "Hollywood slump" of lore). This may or may not be true, but it is said that DVDs are a possible culprit. Why go see a movie in the theater now? You only have to wait a few months till the DVD comes out. And with that, you actually get a better and sound quality than a lot of theaters give (faults of management...dim picture, poor sound, not to mention old celluloid instead of digital printout). So why not just wait, and then rent it (or buy it)? Then you get the WHOLE movie...not just the film, but special features, deleted scenes, extended cuts, alternate endings, etc. etc.
In fact, I've even heard that in the not-too-distant future, movies are going to be released on DVD at the same time as the theatrical releases.
If this has any element of truth, "Kong" would illustrate a very good example. Of course, it's EXACTLY the type of movie you'd want to see on DVD, with its epic story and cool special effects. I remember seeing the movie in the theater and having some slight feelings of being underwhelmed...the sound quality was too low, and the picture looked a little dim. But my DVD experience with the film has been phenomenal.
But apparently not enough to go see it in theaters. Or maybe everybody who saw it in theaters liked it enough to buy the DVD, DVDs cost a lot more than movie tickets so if you sell the same amount of both you'll make a lot more on the DVD. No there is no "home movie" box office, "box office" means theaterical because that's where there is a box office, DVD sales are part of the non-box office revenue stream, very important but not box office.
I'm recycling them because they're right and you're not presenting any counter argument. I can't pinpoint who was fired because it was some nameless dude, but I can garauntee that that somebody got fired. Whenever a movie doesn't break even with domestic box office somebody gets fired, that's how Hollywood works, full punishment for any failure. It's one of the reasons Hollywood has gotten so cookie cutter, everybody is afraid to take a chance because they know that a single failure results in instant termination.
Except of course the "Hollywood slump" is completely lore and lacks all support in the real data (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/ 2005 was bad but the overall trend is upwards and the numbers this year show it's probable things are back on the upward track, comfortably above 2005 and probably better than 2004). Yes movies do make the vast majority of their money from sources other than domestic box office, but domestic box office is still and will continue to be the yard by which a successful movie is measured.
A couple of movies already have been released on DVD at the same time they went theaterical. Arthouse type stuff that nobody really cared about. The big companies won't be going for it on the big budget movies as long as there's $9 billion to be made at the theaters during a "bad" year.
To me Kong is EXACTLY the type of movie you want to see in the theaters. It's a big larger than life pic that belongs on the big larger than life screen. Kind of like the Star Wars movies which I never even think about watching outside of the theaters but I go see in the theaters every time they come out, even if I know Lucas has tweaked it and made it worse.