Editing Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (section)

===Writing===
By 1966, Toho had their sights set on bringing back King Kong back to the silver screen. Their deal with [[RKO]] allowed them the use of King Kong for five years, an agreement that would be over in 1967. Why Toho waited so long to produce another Kong film is unknown. The planned movie, ''Operation Robinson Crusoe: King Kong vs. Ebirah'' (ロビンソン·クルーソー作戦 キングコング対エビラ ''Robinson Kurūsō Sakusen: Kingu Kongu tai Ebira''), was to be a co-production with [[Rankin/Bass]], who was about to debut their animated program, ''The King Kong Show'', in September of that same year. According to Toho Special Effects Movies Complete Works, Jun Fukuda was approached about an untitled US–Japanese ''King Kong'' co-production on April 21, 1966. Even before that, in February 1966, Toho's senior staff member Makoto Fujimoto met with a movie theater owner in Kansai and revealed that the New Year's season would see the release of a new ''King Kong'' movie.

The concept was first pitched by Shinichi Sekizawa on July 13, 1966. However, Rankin-Bass was displeased that Toho was dead-set on Jun Fukuda directing the live-action and Eiji Tsuburaya's protege, Sadamasa Arikawa, directing special effects. Rankin-Bass was equally dead set on the creative team being Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya. When Toho refused to budge and was unable to compromise, Rankin-Bass dropped out of the project. Toho liked the script so much that they decided to simply substitute Godzilla in place of Kong and release it as ''Godzilla, Ebirah, Mothra: Big Duel in the South Seas'' for their New Year's blockbuster. Rankin-Bass and Toho would settle their differences the next year and would begin work on ''King Kong Escapes'' (1967), which was based on the recent King Kong cartoon and would feature Honda at the director's helm.

Even with the loss of one of the title characters, though, Toho continued with production on Sekizawa's screenplay. Little was done to tweak the script and Godzilla displays a Kong-inspired interest in Daiyo. It's even possible the electric shock to revive Kong was a nod to the ape's love of electricity in ''King Kong vs. Godzilla''.

According to [[Teruyoshi Nakano]], Godzilla was supposed to fight a giant octopus in this film. However, Nakano likely confused this film with an early version of ''All Monsters Attack'' (1969). Both Nakano and Fukuda acted as though they were unaware the film ever started out starring King Kong. Fukuda said, "Godzilla was in the first draft of the script that I saw. I don't know what the earlier drafts were like." Fukuda further elaborated that making the film "was like pouring two cups of water into one. I had to cut one sequence after another." What these cut scenes contained are unknown, but Godzilla's infamous helicopter spin of Ebirah, which exists only in publicity photos, was apparently planned for the film, as storyboards exist of the scene.