Merian C. Cooper(1893-1973)

Being the producer of King Kong (1933), he personally removed a scene in which four sailors, after Kong shook them off a log bridge, fall into a ravine and are eaten alive by giant spiders because, when previewed in January 1933, audience members either fled the theater in terror or talked about the ghastly scene during the entire movie.

[about why the spider scene in King Kong (1933) was removed] It stopped the picture cold, so the next day back at the studio, I took it out myself.