After years in development, shooting is about to begin on 20th Century Fox’s prequel to Planet Of The Apes, which will reboot things and look at how the animals became super-intelligent in the first place, with all WETA Digital created, CG simians replacing the men in suits of earlier movies.
James Franco has been lined up for the main role, and last week we reported that Don Cheadle and Frieda Pinto were in talks to join the film. While Cheadle’s involvement is still up in the air, THR confirms that Pinto is now fully on-board and so is John Lithgow. The report also gives a little more info on the plot, as while we’ve known the apes would be getting genetically spliced, which makes them super-smart and want to take over the world, we haven’t known why. Apparently, the film ‘focuses on a scientist (Franco) who has been working on a cure for Alzheimers that is being tested on apes. The test subject named Caesar evolves rapidly, and the scientist takes him home to live with him and protects him from cruel doctors.’
For a long time the prequel was known simply as Caesar, and while it’s been retitled Rise Of The Apes, it’s seems certain that as with Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, it’ll be this animal that turns into the leader of the simian rebellion that eventually displaces humans at the top of the evolutionary tree.
Lithgow will play Franco’s Alzheimer’s stricken father, giving a bit more dramatic impetus to the scientists search for a cure, while Pinto with be the female lead, a primatologist.
Rupert Wyatt is directing the film, which starts shooting in Canada this summer, ready for a June 2011 release.