Welcome Back the Apes

It has been popping up on our news site: Tim Burton has shot a remake of the sci-fi classic “Planet of the Apes” (1968). It should arrive on our screen at the end of the year.

It has all the ingredients of a remake or a serial, but director Tim Burton considers his film to be something totally new. The main human part is played by Mark Wahlberg, who follows in Charlton Heston’s footsteps. Heston himself appears in the new film in a minor part. He plays an ape and has, so to speak, evolutionarily regressed. Furthermore, Burton gained the support of Kris Kristofferson, Michael Clarke Duncan, Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Roth and George Clooney – as the general of the apes.

Five different endings were shot and it is a big secret which one was chosen for the final cut. Whatever it is, Michael Clarke Duncan promises that it will be “a mind-blowing experience”.

The fright experienced by some patients in a hospital near the set was probably similarly mind-blowing: while waiting for emergency treatment, Duncan was wheeled into the ward because he sprained his ankle during shooting – and there hadn’t had the time to take off his ape costume.