Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
When I was on the flight to Florida last week (my Sayles report is almost finished... hope it'll be worth the wait), I read the script for PLANET OF THE APES on the flight. To be honest, this just hasn't been a priority film for me to learn more about. I love Rick Baker's work, and I thought the script was fine... not great, but entertaining enough. The only thing missing from the script was the last few pages... the twist ending. And come on, admit it... you know there's gonna be a twist ending. It's PLANET OF THE APES, fer pissakes. I know Tim Burton has said that this film does NOT take place on Earth, so that's left people wondering what sort of ending they would come up with that would carry the same punch as that iconic Statue of Liberty scene. It looks like FilmJerk.com has run a couple of stories from someone who claims to have seen the ending. If it's accurate, it's some pretty strong spoiler material, and you should go over there at your own risk. In the meantime, we got this brief missive in from MAJOR MANDELLA, who has something to say about potential last-minute APES shooting...
Sirs:
I attended the LA Comic Book/SciFi Con today (6/17) for the presentations by Stan Winston (Jurassic Park III and A.I.) and Cary Takagawa (Planet of the Apes). Winston was very clever and gave a terrific presentation. Takagawa, who has gotten busy lately (Pearl Harbor as well as Planet of the Apes) was also very approachable, signing autographs and gave an interesting presentation on how they were taught to run like apes and so on. I'm personally not going to expound in depth about them quasi-remaking Apes, but the original has aged well and is not dying to be remade. Burton excels at atmosphere and offbeat characters, not action, and Marky Mark is their lead. Very little about the previews make me excited that they haven't simply made another dumb effects action picture.
The scoop is that Takagawa explained in detail that the makeup and bodysuits were heavy. He had his mask with him and said he HOPED that he would not have to don it again, at which point he turned to the Fox rep and conversed off mike and then turned back and said it did look like he was going to have to put it on a few more times for reshoots. This close to release? I hope for the sake of Tim Burton that this is just fine tuning.
