The Arsinoitherium--Why Didn't It Make It Into Any Prehistoric Movies?

The Arsinoitherium, a spectacularly horned extinct mammal of Miocene Africa, named for the Egypttian Queen Arsino, has been opted for many prehistoric fantasy and adventure films over the years, but never made it into any. The above production image was for Creation, am early film by Willis O'Brian, above a pleasure cruise ship that becomes stranded off the coast of South America, on an island full of prehistoric beasts. It was barely missed production, RKO opted to produce King Kong instead. The only footage of Creation that was filmed was of a bad guy among the group shooting a baby triceratops and being chased (and gored to death, according to the script) by its enraged mother. 

Above: Production drawing from Kong showing the men running into the Arsinoitherium. Below: the deleted  Arsinoitherium log scene from Kong, as envisioned by artist William Stout

In King Kong, it was the Arsinoitherium that was first optioned to be the the beast that chased the men out onto a log to be shaken off by Kong. It was replaced by a Styracosaurus, whose image does survive in a still of that scene and was eventually shown in Son of Kong. 

The Arsinoitherium stop-motion model from Creation and Kong

Next, the Arsinoitherium was optioned for the film One Million Years B. C., staring Raquel Welch, but someone reportedly thought that the beast wasn't "prehistoric" enough, possibly because it so resembled a modern rhino. 

It was also apparently optioned for the King Kong remake of the seventies, whose final version was notoriously devoid of dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts. The original script for the remake was supposed to include a plethora of prehistoric monsters, from giant millipedes to evolved species of  ceratopsians, a dog-like terrestrial amphibian, giant vulture, and Titanoboa-like serpent sporting a crest, taking into account that the creatures would not have stayed the same for millions of years! The only problem fans might have was that the original conception of Kong himself for the remake made him look more like a giant australopithicine than a gorilla. In other words, too human. 

Production art for the primeval menagerie of The Legend of Kong, including the hominid-like Kong. More info can be found here: https://fictosphere.com/2020/09/14/the-legend-of-king-kong-1975-kongs-second-untold-story/

    What might be lesser known is that the Arsinoitherium was also slated to put in an appearance in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, a film that featured a few prehistoric creatures, two of which (a giant horned troglodyte, and a gigantic walrus) had little basis in scientific fact.

Trog battles the Arsinoitherium in the deleted Sinbad and Eye of the Tiger scene

I've already written on my own Arthur Conan Doyle blog regarding two additional never-produced films that were to feature the Arsinoitherium. These were an adaptation of the pulp novel Jongor of Lost land, about a lost world in Australia of prehistoric beasts and Atlantean remnants, and Dark Continent, a cross-over between Sherlock Holmes, and H. Rider Haggard's She.

The Arsinoitherium the proposed Sherlock Holmes/ She crossover set in a lost land setting in Africa

Haggard's novel originally contained no prehistoric fauna, but in the film version, beasts like the Arsinoitherium, a horn-snouted Spinosaurus (both of which once lived in Africa at different times and Titanoboa like serpent were kept alive by the eternal Flame of Iridar, same as the living goddess of the novel's title. 

Sadly, arsinoitherium never made it into any of these films; and in some cases, the films themselves never got made. 

There are at least a couple of instances from the comics, however, that feature it. 

Shanna O'Hare, mate of Ka-Zar the Savage, confronts an arsinoitherium in issue #6

             A purple-skinned arsinoitherium seen in a Russ Manning Tarzan strip set on in Pal-ul-don, a lost world in Africa

     Another scene from Manning's Pal-ul-don from the Tarzan dailies. As the beasts fight over the remaining water during a drought, an Arsinoitherium can be seen in the right of the right panel

The above painting appears to be a production artwork from Peter Jackson's Kong remake. However, it does not appear in the companion book, Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island, which also suggests that only ancient reptiles and proto mammals are true natives to the island in this version, the Kongs and bat-like Terepasmordax being late arrivals. There are also virtually no pterosaurs in this version of Kong, the one known exception being the flightless scissor-bill. This painting may have been done just for fun, with no intended connection to the film itself, or perhaps it was an early drawing, version that proposed featuring other giant mammals as well. 

UPDATE: A recent trailer for the 2nd season of the Primal TV series features an Arsinoitherium. I had to pause the video at the right moment to ascertain that's what it was:

This was the only frame I could find, but as Fang the other (male?) T-rex, contest over it, it's very clear that's what it is. 

Also, in the Imaro series by Charles R. Saunders, set in an alternate Africa called Nyumbani, there a number of prehistoric survivors, including a huge animal with two horns placed side by side called a gunkwu. It certainly seems to be an Arsinoitherium. Gunkwu are used as very formidable warbeasts by the Nyumbanians. 

UPDATE:

To name one additional example, in issue 229 of Savage Sword of Conan, Conan and Red Sonja get sent back to the early Hyborian age by the wizard Thuza Thun. They arrive in the arena of Archeron during the siege of the Hyborians, where they are forced to battle smilodons. There are a variety other surviving anceint mammals in the arena's beast-pens, including a Uintatherium and an Arsinoitherium.

I'll need to do another post on Hyborian Age beasts for this and the Robert E. Howard page, but that's it for now.