The Planet of the Apes franchise has spanned nine science-fiction movies. Starting with the discovery that humanity ended itself and led to the evolution of the simian race to take over the planet, the series would begin churning out tales that had audiences clinging to the political commentary attached to the script.
Here, we will dive into decisions made behind the scenes and some of the original plans for the franchise. We will be looking at how these decisions could have impacted the films and the new conversations that would spawn them. We will also include facts already confirmed by the team that brought the movies together but may not have been as evident from the films themselves.
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6 It Was Based on a Book
20th Century Fox
The original film, Planet of the Apes (1968), was based on the work of Pierre Boulle, a French novelist. The original story told a similar tale as the film did, but with the framing device that the events of the film happened to a journalist named Ulysses and not to a trained astronaut. And these events have already occurred as they are being recounted by a spaceship’s crew reading the discovered manuscript of Ulysses.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
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While certain characters still exist in the novel, such as the mute Nova and the chimp scientists Cornelius & Zira, the bevy of new characters adds a new depth to the plot. Some barbaric acts are described in the novel, such as Ulysses being “mated” with Nova and the experiments being performed on the regressed humans to discover what events led to the apes’ rise. Unlike the first film, Ulysses & Nova can leave the planet, only to find out that they returned to the present too late, as events have already happened that led to the apes taking over the Earth.
5 Tim Burton’s Film was Almost Very Different
Tim Burton’s film Planet of the Apes (2001) is widely considered to be the worst entry in the franchise to date. One of the most maligned scenes in the film is the plot twist ending, but the entire plot was almost even worse. Development for the reboot had been in the works for years, suffering a revolving door of directors and writers, with the movie’s tone changing multiple times.
The studio had been insisting on a more campy feeling, a request made all the stranger seeing as Arnold Schwarzenegger was initially set to be the lead actor. Leaning into the camp, the studio had a script featuring a story of Arnold helping to teach the apes of the future how to play baseball, with the infamous final scene changing to feature the apes playing baseball in Yankee Stadium.
4 James Franco was Killed Off-Screen
James Franco was the lead actor in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011). While Franco played a crucial character in Caesar’s life, audiences wouldn’t see the actor return to his role in future films. Franco played Will Rodman, a scientist who had been working with apes to find a cure for Alzheimer’s. This cure would prove to be degenerative, and further attempts to recreate the serum would lead to the Simian Flu. While Franco doesn’t return, many believed it was simply because the films were choosing to follow Caesar’s path after Caesar left Will behind. However, the production team would reveal in later interviews that because Will Rodman had been at ground zero for the virus, it had been determined that he eventually succumbed to the disease and died off-screen.
3 Actors Would Segregate
The franchise had started as early as the late ’60s when racial injustice was more common throughout the country. While the act of segregation had been outlawed 14 years before the first film’s release, actors would naturally segregate, but not by the color of their skin. They were more akin to separating based on whether they played humans or apes in the film.
This would also reflect the different species of simians that the actors played. In the film, the Gorillas were military, the Orangutans were diplomats, and the Chimps were scientists, and all of these factions would separate and eat together during cast meal breaks. The political commentary that this would cast upon the crew is provocative, with the thought that after playing these characters for so long, the actors may have cast aside ideas of whom the people underneath the makeup were and found comfort in actors that looked most similar to themselves.
2 There Was Almost a Hybrid
In science-fiction, there are always thoughts of how life may have evolved and created a new life. Just look to the predator-alien featured in Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), for evidence that sometimes these elements can prove to be very divisive. In the development of Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), the production team ran tests on how the look of a human-ape-hybrid would appear on the screen.
The fact that these tests were run, to begin with, shows that there was serious thought and consideration given to the idea. However, this plot hook would eventually be dropped when someone brought up the fact that such a creature would imply a strange sexual act had taken place. Even though the apes in question show clear signs of thought and speech, the humans native to this planet (sans the mutated ones living in the Forbidden City) are mute and mentally regressed creatures. This idea would be tossed into the trash bin as soon as the implications were brought forth; an intelligent decision most would feel.
1 Nova Was Supposed to be Pregnant
The first film’s final act was set to be vastly different from the theatrical cut. During filming, the writers had wanted to adapt the aspect of Pierre Boulle’s novel that featured Nova being pregnant. The team had filmed scenes where Nova would be pregnant with Taylor’s child and escape into the Forbidden City after an ape sniper killed Taylor.
These scenes would eventually be removed after conversations about whether there would be negative moral implications attached to this story arc. As Nova is a mute woman who had regressed in intelligence to the point that she likely could not properly communicate consent, the actions would have implied grossly inhumane treatment had been done to her by the story’s hero. Another intelligent decision had been made to leave these scenes on the cutting room floor.
