The King Of Kong A Fistful Of Quarters
Image: New Line Cinema

Steve Wiebe became a star overnight thanks to the documentary film The King of Kong back in 2007, but for the past decade, he has been content to step aside and allow other players to take their shot at high-score glory.

However, Wiebe – who is now recognised as the first person to achieve over a million points in a public Donkey Kong game – has just announced that he's coming out of retirement to rejoin the competitive circuit:

After a 10 year hiatus of chasing world records on Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr, it seemed only fitting to get back into the swing of things during all of this madness. Thank you to Jace Hall for reaching out and welcoming me back into the fold. I don't know what will come of it, but might as well see what I've got left in the tank. I'll try to get streaming up and running at some point, but for now I'll just be recording practice runs on Donkey Kong. I hope to get a few games of DK Junior in after I've accomplished my DK goals. Good luck to everyone in their video gaming pursuits.

Since starring in the 2007 movie, the Donkey Kong world record has changed hands multiple times and is currently held by John McCurdy with a 1,259,000 point score.

Meanwhile, Wiebe's co-star in The King of Kong, Billy Mitchell, has remained active but was recently stripped of his scores after it was asserted by Twin Galaxies that some of them were not achieved on an original, unmodified Donkey Kong arcade board.

Mitchell has since said he is taking legal action against Twin Galaxies to clear his name and has stated that he's aiming to reclaim his previous high score and "let the game die".

Despite the apparent animosity seen on-screen in The King of Kong, Wiebe and Mitchell have always remained on good terms, as evidenced by this rather heartwarming video posted in 2018:

Thanks to Jason Bennett for the tip!