First it was called Caesar, then Rise Of The Apes and now Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (just in case stupid people didn’t realise a film about chimps getting intelligent might have something to do with classic sci-fi movie series). However one of the big questions has been over what the simians in the film would look like. Eschewing men in monkey suits, the film has been using using motion capture, and then getting WETA to create the animals using CG. Now the first shot – strictly a WETA CGI test – has shown up online, giving us a brief but rather cool look at one of the apes. It’s pretty impressive, very realistic and wonderfully captures an animal that’s been experimented on to make it smarter, taking on some human features in the process.
In the film, James Franco stars as a scientist whose work on genetic engineering leads to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy. It’ll be in cinemas later this year.