Having already brought Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” to life in 2005, Andy Serkis will once again play an ape, but this time in 20th Century Fox’s rebooted reboot of their “Planet of the Apes” franchise.
Serkis has been cast in the role of Caesar, the chimp who leads the simian revolt according to Fox’s Twitter (via Empire). This is essentially reprising Roddy McDowell’s role from 1972’s “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.”
Directed by Rupert Wyatt, the helmer of the little-seen British prison movie “The Escapist,” the picture also stars James “I like to confound expectations” Franco, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, and possibly Don Cheadle if the rumors prove to be true.
WETA were providing the mo-cap monkeys for the project, so they’ll shoot the actors in those light-bright motion capture suits and then render them as apes later. Robert Zemeckis is a huge fan of this tool, having done three films in a row like this — “The Polar Express,” “A Christmas Carol,” and “Beowulf” — and Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are using it in “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.”
Written by Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver (“The Relic”), “Rise of the Apes” is due in theaters June 24, 2011. Can’t say we care much, but hell, it can’t get worse than Tim Burton’s version.