Wall Street went bananas today and here’s the picture to prove it. Well, actually this is a 2008 photo by Mary Altaffer of the Associated Press who snapped a shot of an actor visiting the New York Stock Exchange to promote the 40th anniversary of “Planet of the Apes.”
I had monkey on the mind when I saw Pamela McClintock’s short Variety item on a project tentatively titled “Rise of the Apes,” which will return yet again to the world of Dr. Zaius and Cornelius. Here’s an excerpt, links added by me.
“Rise of the Apes” is an origins story set in present-day San Francisco. The film is a reality-based cautionary tale, where man’s own experiments with genetic engineering lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy. Weta will render, for the first time ever in the film series, photo-realistic apes rather than costumed actors.
The Weta presence is intriguing but, wow, do we need another “Apes” movie? That original 1968 film was followed by four sequels ”Beneath the Planet of the Apes” in 1970, “Escape from the Planet of the Apes” (1971), “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes” (1972) and “Battle for the Planet of the Apes” (1973) and then there was “Planet of the Apes” (2001) which was a “re-imagining” of the original by director Tim Burton. Then there were the television shows, too, both live-action and animated. I would have thought the Burton dud (which I had very high hopes for, by the way) would have gotten this monkey off of Hollywood’s back.
– Geoff Boucher
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PHOTOS: Top, 2008 photo by Associated Press. Second, poster for “Apes.” Third, vintage images from “Planet of the Apes” (20th Century Fox).
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Let's face it, PotA is a great overall concept just like many other franchises. The Weta fx might breathe new life into it. I'll be in line to see it.
Try all you want, spend all the hundreds of millions of dollars you want, you will never better the original 1967 Planet of the Apes. End of story.
I agree 1000 percent, which is why they started at #4 (Conquest) to retell the tale, but keep the mythology. The original is by far my favourite movie of all time, but what I saw on Saturday excited me the same way as when I saw Conquest in the theater at the tender age of 9… it's a damn good Apes movie. Damn good.
David, you are SO right. Plus, the magic of that series was kind of rooted in the late 60's/early 70's. Making the apes more "ape like" in Burton's film didn't improve anything, and his convoluted attempt to reinvent the film's central premise (notoriously borrowed/stolen from Kevin Smith) was an epic fail.
agreed, Marky Mark and the Monkey Bunch was a disaster of an apes movie. The Nova-like chick was pretty hot though…
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SAW THE MOVIE OPENING NIGHT ,VERY GOOD FILM SETTING IN THE CITY BRILLIANT DIDNT OVER DUE SPECIAL EFFECTS
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