Moriarty's Monkeyed Loose Some PLANET OF THE APES News!!

Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.

Tell you what... I'll start calling it THE VISITOR when I see something official with the film's logo on it. Right now, everyone involved with the production is calling the film that is almost finished with set construction on Stage 30 of the Sony Lot "PLANET OF THE APES" when they talk about it, so I'm going to keep calling it PLANET OF THE APES. Try marketing it without that title and see how far you get, Fox. Go ahead... I'll wait.

In the meantime, I was working here at the Labs last night when I heard Mongo start to chatter and hoot excitedly. Normally this means he's figured out how to find Cinemax on the cable box, so I grabbed my "attitude adjuster" off the work bench and went to pry the remote free from him. Instead, I found him deep in simian conversation with a Red-Assed Baboon who he seemed to know. I asked what they were so excited about, and was surprised when the Baboon began to speak in the cultured English tones of Roddy McDowall. "I was a big fan of the original APES films," he offered by way of explanation.

"I've just been released from Rick Baker's makeup labs," he continued. "It's crazy over there right now. I got a good look at the design work being done, and I can tell you that it's nothing like the work that Winston was doing for the Cameron version. In some ways, it's going to make fans of the original very happy. I mean, looking at Helena Bonham Carter's makeup, you can't help but think of Kim Hunter. But it's more accurate. It's like they've used the classic style as a jumping off point. They've gotten really accurate, though. The head shapes, the face shapes... they're exactly the way real ape physiology works. The makeup itself is fairly high-tech stuff, and it's really responsive to the actors, so you should see some of the most subtle makeup performances ever by the time they finish. There's the species we already know, the chimpanzees and the orangutans and the gorillas, but there's other species as well. That's where you're going to see some stuff you've never seen before. Gibbons with necksacks that puff up when they're angry, mandrills, howler monkeys... Burton and Baker are working to really fill out the world with all these other species, each of them bringing their particular quirks to the movie.

"As far as the story is concerned, it's pretty straightforward. An astronaut crashes on this planet, he learns that humans are the animals while everything is run by apes, he's captured, and he starts to work with the chimps to bridge the gap between the species. It's a bigotry allegory. One thing I did learn is that they've got some giant surprise planned for the ending, something that will really screw with audiences the same way the Statue of Liberty ending did for the original audiences."

With that, he went back to screeching happily at Mongo, and I left the two of them to their crazy monkey games. I'm thinking I'll have to take a peek at the sets and the script to this thing soon. Right now, there's some rumbling about Tim Burton being unhappy with the film, but everything seems to still be moving forward. Provided there's no unexpected production hiccups in the weeks ahead, sounds like we're going to be seeing the ultimate Rick Baker ape film next summer. Must admit... I'm interested. Until then...

"Moriarty" out.