Since a devastating fire destroyed much of the Universal Studios in June of 2008, the damage has slowly-but-surely been restored. Over this time period, many exciting announcements have also been made — namely, that the legendary King Kong ride would not be rebuilt, but re-imagined as a brand new and amazing attraction for visitors to check out.

A few details for this new ride — which was to be based not on the classic 1933 film, but Peter Jackson‘s latest epic film — were shared in June of 2009, but they only described what the ride would be. Now, almost two years later, we’re starting to get a really strong idea of what to expect if we find ourselves visiting Kong this Summer when the ride opens.

Jackson got together with a team of both theme park ride experts and film making talents inside of a giant hangar cloaked in green screen to put it all together and create one of the wildest cinematic adventure rides ever conceived.

Continue on down below to read more about how insane this ride will be, and also to check out the ride’s short teaser trailer.

NOTE: For structural reasons and to ensure that this list is super-duper pretty at all times, we’ll be posting this same intro for all sections of The Decade List. If you’ve already read all of this, you can just head down to the continuation of our list!

Let’s just get it out of the way right off the ol’ bat: yes, we know it’s been month since we left the decade. Most folks undertook this heavy task pre-2010, but we decided that it would be a little bit better to let the new year settle in a bit before hitting you with something of this magnitude.

So here we are, geeks: we’ve officially arrived in FUTURE *cue retro ’50s sci-fi music* and still we have no freakin’ flying cars yet. What’s the deal with that? While it is pretty exciting to be inside of the year 2010 — a year that always seemed unreachable to us mere mortals — we are also exiting another entire decade that leaves us staring at one majorly epic task. That task? To search, dig, locate, retrieve, organize, polish, and present the very best films of the past ten years!

It’s been four years now since Peter Jackson’s 2005 King Kong remake hit theaters. Now comes word that a brand new Kong movie is officially in development through Spirit Pictures. The movie will be based on the book Kong: King of Skull Island which was written by Joe DeVito and Brad Strickland and published in 2005 when Jackson was making his movie.

There’s one thing about this project that is raising some confusion. The initial report by Variety states that the movie is a prequel, telling the story of Skull Island and how Kong came to be king of the island, as well as a deeper look at some of the other creatures we’ve seen residing there. From the book’s outline, it sounds more like a sequel story (taking place in 1957, twenty-five years after the first story) that includes Jack Driscoll, Carl Denham, and Denham’s son, Vincent; with an included backstory that explains the island, Kong, and things like how they built the giant wall and why they built the door big enough for Kong to fit through it.

Click over to the other side to read a more-detailed piece of the story outline that explains what the book is about.

One of the most legendary movie attractions ever to exist was the King Kong movie ride at Universal Studios Hollywood. Sadly, the attraction and much, much more property was lost in that devastating backlot fire in June of last year.

Now that the fire is a distant memory and Universal has made huge plans to completely makeover the experience for tourists, including the recently-announced Creature From the Black Lagoon stage show (Read: “˜Creature From The Black Lagoon’ Gets A Rockin’ Stage Show At Universal Studios Hollywood) — they’re ready to bring the mighty Kong back to the fans.

While the King Kong attraction is making a return, it will not be that classic robotic ape we know so well. Kong is embracing the technologies of today and getting the complete makeover treatment. This time around, the experience will be based on Peter Jackson‘s 2005 King Kong and it will present fans with a groundbreaking 4-D (yeah, 4-D!), multi-sensory experience with mind-blowing effects and Earth’s largest Surround Digital projection system. This already sounds like something that has to be added to my bucket list.

Click over for a description of how this new ride will go.