Creation was an RKO film underway by Harry O. Hoyt and Willis O’Brien (the same team that produced The Lost World) in 1931 when a financial crisis at RKO lead David Selznick to order producer Merian C. Cooper to evaluate all projects underway to see which of them should be canceled. Creation told the story of the crew of a luxury yacht who find themselves lost on an unknown island inhabited by dinosaurs and was slated to be RKO’s most expensive picture to date. Although O’Brien and the crew completed some test footage of the film, Cooper thought it wasn’t worth continuing considering the financial trouble the company was in. He did, however, see a possibility of using the assembled crew and their special techniques to produce an idea he had about giant a gorilla: King Kong.