Seth Gordon has directed the documentary THE KING OF KONG, about two guys vying to be the best in the world at the 1980s arcade game classic DONKEY KONG.   Billy Mitchell, reigning champion since 1982, is now a barbeque sauce mogul, has long hair and a beard, and tends to dress all in black.  Steve Wiebe, up-and-coming contender, is a high school science teacher.   Both guys are married with children, and wives who presumably have varying levels of patience with their DONKEY KONG obsession.  

MoviesForGuys.com interviewed director Seth Gordon.

MFG: What drew you to this project?  Was it the games or the personalities initally?

Seth Gordon:  Funspot (World's largest arcade, in New Hampshire) is one of my favorite places in the world. As a kid, my parents would vacation in New Hampshire. I would trade report card grades for game tokens and stay there all day. I always try to go back there whenever I can.

When I first met Steve, he seemed such an average guy, vanilla.  I was of course pretty wrong about that original assessment.  But he reminded me of Funspot.  We had the idea of doing a Sports movie with sport as classic video game.     Not just DONKEY KONG.  PAC-MAN, MS. PAC-MAN, CENTIPEDE,   DIG-DUG, BURGERTIME, these all led to Billy Mitchell.    KONG was his most-prized record; it had cemented his reputation as "Gamer of the Century."

When we talked with Billy Mitchell, he would not say Steve Wiebe's name, his rival.   He would phrase his paragraphs and sentences to avoid saying Steve's name. That was really interesting. The DONKEY KONG story was too fascinating, and gradually became the entire movie..

MFG: Watching the movie, I wasn't really sure how long these record-breaking games last?

Seth Gordon:  KONG is 3 hours. PAC-MAN is now down to 4.5 hours, MISS PAC-MAN is still a steady 6 hours. Unlike PAC-MAN, KONG doesn't have a
hiding spot so you can't step away from the machine, and it's totally random, no pattern.

To these gamers it's the scientific method; hard science hypothesis and an answer, and they are trying to learn one more fact about the game and dig just a little deeper. Billy for instance no longer seems interested in PAC-MAN, because he's done the perfect game.

MFG: How much of a DONKEY KONG enthusiast were you before this movie?   Did you play it while making the movie, and what's your high score?

Seth Gordon:  My record is 120,000. Which is terrible by these standards, but very good in comparison to the average player.  Most DONKEY KONG games last less than a minute; most people can't get past the first screen. We acquired a machine to better understand the game during the editing process, and had internal contests in the editing suite.

MFG: From the movie I understand that you can't just keep playing DONKEY KONG indefinitely, there's a point where it runs out of memory?

Seth Gordon:  Yes, this is known as the "Kill Screen."   It's on the 117th screen, Level 22, Board 1.  The game ends but you still get your chance to put in your initials.  Only Steve and Billy can get to the Kill Screen consistently.

MFG: These are colorful people.  When making a documentary of this sort, how much do you think having a camera on them causes your subjects to "turn it up a notch?"

Seth Gordon:  I think with Billy, 100%.  He's been in front of cameras forever, since he was 17. He's developed a persona over time. It's a character he plays. If he flubbed a soundbyte, he'd say "Hold on" and do it again because he wanted to be perfect. That's just not the way other people are!

With Steve, I think if we weren't filming a documentary, he would have stopped trying. Our being there watching was enough to keep him going.

So much of character is action; what you choose to do. Billy has this way of controlling this world of gamers, and Steve is this innocent outsider just trying to be recognized.  Steve is quiet but extremely competitive.

MFG: It seems like the rules keep changing for this contest?

Seth Gordon:  It's as much a P.R. game as anything, and the story evolves with these guys.

I don't care who wins, but the double standards (of the association that governs these high scores) in the way the rules are applied are extraordinary. From an
objective perspective it's suspect. 

It's a rivalry that will go on forever, because nobody else can touch them (in this level of DONKEY KONG play).

It's a uniquely American thing to want to be accomplish something that's around forever. But the guy who can't play the politics gets the short end of the stick.

MFG: Have these two guys seen the film?

Seth Gordon:  Steve has been at film festival showings of the film.  Billy refuses to see the film, and he's mounted a smear campaign, with his people calling in to the press.

MFG: They seem to have a Jedi-and-Sith thing going here.

Seth Gordon:  Steve may be the hero of the film, but Billy is definitely the star.

MFG: You probably had a lot of extra material from filming this.  When this comes out on DVD, will some of that be on there?

Seth Gordon:  There's a lot of extra material planned for the DVD:  23 extras. Viewing games side-by-side, a MS. PAC-MAN rivalry
which is just as crazy as the DONKEY KONG rivalry, things like that.

MFG: What other projects do you have in the works?

Seth Gordon:  New Line bought the rights to remake THE KING OF KONG as a narrative (with actors playing the parts), so I'll
direct that, and have to work at keeping it authentic.

I'm working on a documentary about a soldier in Afghanistan who was running a private prison and got imprisoned himself after Abu Ghraib..

In December I'll start filming FOUR CHRISTMASES with Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn. We got the greenlight two days ago. It's exciting and scary all at once!

- Tom Luthman, MoviesForGuys.com

The MoviesForGuys.com review of THE KING OF KONG can be found here.