* BoxOfficeBomb: Budget, $18 million. Domestic box office, $4,711,220. Ironically, the film actually made double its budget worldwide, but Dino de Laurentiis agreed to too low a percentage of the foreign grosses, thinking its Stateside box-office would make up for it, a gamble which backfired spectacularly.
* CreatorKiller: ''King Kong Lives'' sent the career of director John Guillermin off the top floor of the Empire State Building and into a freefall; his projects after this were all on TV.
* DistancedFromCurrentEvents: In the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, TBS pulled a scheduled airing of this film (replacing it with the Chevy Chase vehicle ''Funny Farm'') ''solely'' because it opens with a StockFootage recap of the World Trade Center-set climax and denouement of its predecessor.
* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: The movie has not seen another home video release since 2004, and the DVD goes for a lot of money on sites like Amazon and eBay.
* NotScreenedForCritics: A variation. The distributor wouldn't allow reviewers to show footage on the stations that they worked for. Creator/GeneSiskel and Creator/RogerEbert talked about this in their "Worst of 1986" special and even though they complied (despite refusing to sign forms that agreed to this request), still mercilessly trashed the film -- Ebert recalled that watching kids at a screening swinging a door in the auditorium around was more entertaining than the film itself.
* ReferencedBy: A key subplot in ''Film/TheBigHit'' is built around a VHS tape of this film. It's rented by hitman Melvin from a video store, with him getting constant phone calls from the nerdy store clerk about it being overdue.
* SequelGap: Ten years since the previous film; this is acknowledged in-universe.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Creator/PeterWeller was offered a part in the film, but he went to do ''{{Film/RoboCop|1987}}'' instead.