Tuesday
02Dec2008
When a 'Planet of the Apes' Remake Is Not a 'Planet of the Apes' Remake
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 12:21AM
As a guy who relies on Damn Dirty Apes as the very basis
of his movie review system, news about
Planet of the Apes will always interest me,
even if - as in this case - it's not strictly speaking about Planet of the
Apes.
Sunday, the news came that Scott Frank, who wrote and directed The Lookout, would be hired by the studio to handle those duties on the Conquest remake, once called Apes: Genesis and now called Caesar.
Monday, CHUD talked to Frank and he confirmed that he was going to write and direct Caesar, but it's not a Planet of the Apes movie. "(H)is film will not feature talking monkeys," writes Devin Faraci of CHUD, "and it will not end with chimpanzees running wild in the streets, taking over the world."
So what is it? Basically, an Apes movie without apes. It could be more like 2001, leaning on a mistrust of modern technology, or at least that's how I read it. Frank reportedly wants this to be heavy on the science and heavy on the characters, and Caesar will use scientific advances being used today to build a world in which scientists create a "hyper-intelligent chimpanzee," who we can assume outwits man in the final act and starts a domino effect of ape revolt that leads to the original Planet of the Apes.
Frank was quick to point out that he won't know until February whether or not the project will move forward, but he is reshaping the script now. This is all great news for me, since I said of this concept back when we knew less, "The other films in the series...have pretty novel plots, places for the characters and the action to go. They're not all great movies (and in fact, I don't even think Conquest is all that good), but the stories have potential." So it sounds like they're stripping the story down, removing the gimmick, and moving forward from there.
Colin Boyd | Permalink | in Apes, Prequels, Remakes | Print Article | Email Article | 2 Comments | Share Article
Reader Comments (2)
this actually sounds pretty fantastic! I've not seen any of teh apes films yet - despite owning a lovely boxset of all five. I think i'll get to it!
As someone who has,as Colin can attest, had his picture taken standing next to "Biight Eyes" while wearing an ape mask I can only say "It's a mad house!!!!!! A MAAAAAAAAAAAAAD HOOOOOOOOOOUSSSSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"