For over a year now, there’s been talk about a sort-of reboot for the Planet Of The Apes franchise. Scott Frank (Marley & Me, Minority Reports) was hired to write a reimagining, about a genetically altered simian called Caesar, who leads an ape revolution (basically a ground-up reimagining of Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes). Basically an origins tale, with us discovering how how apes overtook humans as the dominant force on the planet.
However since those intial reports there’s been virtually no news, until Chud revealed last week that Frank had left the project, with the speculation being that this meant Fox was putting the project on the shelf – after all, few had been crying out for another Apes movie after Tim Burton’s 2001 effort.
However it now appears that the studio haven’t completely given up on the film, as Vulture reports that while Frank has indeed exited the Apes reboot (because the studio was uncertain about the direction he was taking), Fox has handed the project to producer Peter Chernin and brought in Jamie Moss (Street Kings) to rework the script. Chernin is a big Apes fan, who first tried to revive the franchise in 1992 and was head of Fox when the studio made Burton 2001 film.
Although it’s always going to be tough to make a film where the humans are the losers, Avatar has shown it’s not impossible. And While Burton’s movie was a bit of a misfire, this origins tale certainly looks like a good way forward, so that they’re not just rehashing what failed a few years ago.