Tim Burton first remade the 1968 Charlton Heston classic Planet of the Apes back in 2001, to disastrous results. But this is Hollywood. You can’t very well leave a 40-year-old idea to wither on the vine! So now we’ve got a prequel (EVERYONE LOVES PREQUELS!) from 20th Century Fox. The idea came from a script by Scott Frank (Minority Report, Out of Sight), first called Caesar, which was re-written by The Relic writers Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa and retitled Rise of the Apes, which was later changed to Rise of Planet of the Apes. Because making sense be damned, we’ve gotta ride this wave of Planet of the Apes nostalgia! The story deals with a handsome scientist’s efforts to cure Alzheimer’s, inadvertently creating a race of super-intelligent apes in the process. Now the trailer’s here, starring James Franco in a Rupert Wyatt film, though WETA, the visual effects company, actually gets top billing.
The trailer is after the jump. And as you may have noticed in the banner image, I’ve made an important discovery vis a vis James Franco: the way he delivers eighty percent of his lines with his eyes closed makes him look like a doo wop singer.
Here’s the official synopsis. It is an absolute triumph of awful PR writing:
An origin story in the true sense of the word…
DO NOT BE FOOLED BY IMITATION ORIGIN STORIES.
…RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is set in present day San Francisco. The film is a reality-based cautionary tale…
DO NOT BE FOOLED BY NON-REALITY-BASED FICTION! OUR STORY IS FORTIFIED WITH A PROPRIETARY BLEND OF BELIEVABILITY™!
– a science fiction/science-fact blend where mankind’s hubris leads to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy.
OUR PATENT-PENDING SCIENCE-FACT FORMULA IS 60% TRUTHIER THAN THE LEADING BRAND!
Oscar(R)-winning visual effects house WETA Digital – employing certain of the groundbreaking technologies developed for “Avatar” -
WE CAN’T TELL YOU WHICH GROUND BREAKING TECHNOLOGIES WERE DEVELOPED, OUR LAWYERS WOULD KILL US! BUT REST ASSURED THAT IT’S MORE THAN “SOME” AND LESS THAN “ALL”!
…will render, for the first time ever in the film series, photo-realistic apes rather than costumed actors. [Apple]
AND NOW… FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY… MOTHERF*CKING CGI! YOU’VE NEVER SEEN CGI IN A MODERN MOVIE BEFORE!
APES! WILL! RISE!
[Opens August 5th]
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Too bad they can’t use Academy Award (R) winning sound effects to take out the baby with a mealy mouth inflection Franco puts on every line.
The Jewish apes don’t rise.
What brand could be hotter than Planet of the Apes?
Get ready for Ponderosa!
Is it based on Bonanza? Is it based on the ought-to-be-shuttered chain of Steakhouses? Only the bold no for sure. Brett Ratner presents Ponderosa!
The folks at Hanna-Barbera must be feeling pretty left out right now. Where’s the love for Magilla Gorilla and Grape Ape?
Get to work on photo-realistic bowties and little hats, WETA!
Is it just me, or are there invisible apes swinging through the trees at the 1:28 mark?
I thought it was rainin’ apes at the 1:30 mark. After closer inspection, these appear to be loafers.
Not even Dicknose himself can save this one, gang
Scientist: Does it work?
Franco: Like we’ve predicted, with one exception: all the apes are DICKNOSED!
LET THE MONKEYS HIT THE FLOOR! LET THE MONKEYS HIT THE FLOOR!
What a shitty prequel. Humanity was supposed to fuck itself up with a nuclear holocaust paving the way for apes to evolve and become all smart with their thumbs and language. Now the apes are made intelligent (by us no less) and they rise up and cast us out? At least humans are domesticated. We’re the new cats.
When your lock gets picked by a knife on a stick; you, sir, had a shit lock.
Jesus thats retarded. The apes were supposed to have evolved from the remnants of a nuclear war that devastated the world not james franco playing with chemistry sets.
You didn’t warn us about the ape parkour at 1:45, now what the hell am I supposed to do with this erection?
What I don’t get is these apes did they have like a million billion of them because we humans have guns and armies…. or were they all on vacation or something?
Franco as a scientist is adorable. BTW, I’ve never heard the line, “It could potentially SAVE/CHANGE lives!” yelled out in a trailer dealing with science before.
Something tells me there aren’t going to be enough bananas to squash this rebellion.
“He can talk!”
“I can siiiiiiiingggg!”
If only one of the monkeys would suddenly blast Franco in face with a turd and scream, “SHITDICKNOSE, FAGGOT!”
Always room for a timely Simpsons reference, Otto.
“Can I play the piano anymore?”
“Of course you can.”
“..Well I couldn’t before.”
I would have gone with apesberisin.com
Whatever. This looks exactly like Project X. Apple. Help.
“I hate every ape I see, from chimpan-A to chimpan-Z…”
*goes back to watching ‘Christmas Ape’ and ‘Christmas Ape Goes to Summer Camp*
Isn’t this like 90% of the premise of Deep Blue Sea? Someone’s fucking with shark brains to cure Alzheimer’s and they become megasharks?
I’ve always thought “From the producers of DERP!” was a really lame way to sell a film. This is a new level.
From the company that did Craft Services on Avatar…
…and the janitors that cleaned the REAL toilets on the set of Scre4m…
I’m dying for the scene where the monkeys, riding their collie steeds, round up the humans!
Aaaaaaaaaahhhh.
Scuse me. Gotta change.
OSBORN!
Windmilling Dr. Zaius, or GTFO.
Alternate titles:
I, Bonobo
Curious Dicknose
Franco and the motherfuckin’ apes of destruction