LOS ANGELES -- After nearly 19 months away from the spotlight, a new King Kong -- more grizzled and, definitely, ferocious -- is preparing to return to Universal Studios Hollywood.

Since the old animatronic Kong was destroyed in a fire on the theme park's back lot, Hollywood's top visual effects wizards have been tinkering away in a giant hangar in Playa Vista to create a new, more realistic ape to terrify visitors who take the park's signature back lot studio tour.

Inside the humongous drab-green building, Academy Award-winning director Peter Jackson has led a team of film and theme park ride experts in creating a 3-D version of the hairy ape to replace the Kong that died in the June 2008 fire.

The new Kong attraction, described by Universal Studios as the largest 3-D exhibit in the world, will debut this summer at the height of tourist season.

If the new technology works as designed, park visitors will not only see Kong in three dimensions but will smell his banana breath, feel the gust of wind as he jumps over the guests and sense the ground quake when the ape engages a Tyrannosaurus rex in a life-or-death battle. The Kong attraction will be one stop on the park's back lot studio tour ride.

During a recent preview of the technology, a dirty, battle-scarred Kong stared menacingly out from two 180-foot-long-by-40-foot-tall screens that wrap around the trams that will carry visitors. In another scene, a 35-foot-tall T. rex steps over the trams, turns to the audience and bares its massive teeth.

"You are really going to be immersed in every part of the show," Universal Studios show producer Valerie Johnson-Redrow said during the preview for employees and advertising sponsors.

The new digital Kong represents the latest trend in theme park attractions: the increased use of movie magic to thrill and entertain park visitors, including 3-D effects, holograms and pyrotechnics.

The new Kong replaces a seven-ton, 30-foot-tall mechanical ape that was built in 1986 and considered for many years to be one of the most complex animatronic figures in the world. The old Kong was also an icon, used by Universal Studios in television commercials and print ads to draw visitors.

It is unclear if the loss of the attraction hurt attendance at the park because the economic recession that took hold in 2008 cut theme park attendance nationwide.

Within months of the fire, executives began forming plans to rebuild and improve the attraction. Park officials quickly agreed that film technology had advanced much faster than robotics, and so decided Kong would return in digital form.

Although they declined to discuss the price tag for the 3-D production, theme park officials said the cost will be more than six times the price of rebuilding the destroyed mechanical Kong.

"After the 2008 fire, we knew he had to bring him back to the back lot studio tour, but in a way that has never been experienced before," said Universal Studios Hollywood President Larry Kurzweil.

Doug Oster writes a blog, "Growing With Doug," exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.