page_title: Planet of the Apes
section_title: Planned relaunch and development hell
hierarchical_section_title: Planet of the Apes / Remake film / Planned relaunch and development hell
caption_attribution_description: English: Tim Burton at the 2012 Comic-Con in San Diego.
context_page_description: Planet of the Apes is an American science fiction media franchise consisting of films, books, television series, comics, and other media about a world in which humans and intelligent apes clash for control. The franchise is based on French author Pierre Boulle's 1963 novel La Planète des singes, translated into English as Planet of the Apes or Monkey Planet. Its 1968 film adaptation, Planet of the Apes, was a critical and commercial hit, initiating a series of sequels, tie-ins, and derivative works. Arthur P. Jacobs produced the first five Apes films through APJAC Productions for distributor 20th Century Fox; since his death in 1973, Fox has controlled the franchise.
  Four sequels followed the original film from 1970 to 1973: Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes. They did not approach the critical acclaim of the original, but were commercially successful, spawning two television series in 1974 and 1975. Plans for a film remake stalled in "development hell" for over ten years before Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes was released in 2001.
context_section_description: Fox initiated plans to relaunch the Planet of the Apes series in the 1980s, but the project fell into a drawn-out and fruitless development phase—"development hell"—for over 10 years, one of the most protracted development periods in film history. It began in 1988, when Fox announced that Adam Rifkin, then a 21-year-old independent film director, would develop a new Apes movie. At a Fox executive's invitation, Rifkin pitched a concept for Return to the Planet of the Apes, an alternative sequel to Planet that ignored the other four films. In Rifkin's initial concept, Taylor's descendant Duke launches a Spartacus-like uprising against Roman-inspired ape oppressors led by General Izan. Days before the project was scheduled to enter pre-production, Fox brought in new studio executives, who sent it back to development. They commissioned Rifkin to write several redrafts, but found them unsatisfactory and ultimately scrapped the project.
  After several years in limbo, Fox returned to the Apes concept, this time with Oliver Stone as a producer. Stone brought in Terry Hayes as screenwriter and they developed a script titled Return of the Apes. In their script, humanity is threatened by an ailment encoded in their DNA, so two scientists go back in time thousands of years to stop it at its origin. They discover the disease was engineered by advanced apes to ensure humanity's eventual destruction. Arnold Schwarzenegger committed to star as scientist Will Robinson and Philip Noyce agreed to direct. The draft impressed Fox president Peter Chernin, but other executives were ambivalent about the action script, believing that it should be lighter. At one point, executive Dylan Sellers insisted the script include a comic scene involving apes playing baseball as his "stamp" on the film and fired Hayes when he left it out. This move caused Noyce to quit as well, and subsequently almost everyone involved in the project left for one reason or another.
  After the collapse of the Stone-Hayes project, Fox brought on Chris Columbus to develop a new Apes concept. Columbus hired Sam Hamm to write a screenplay taking elements from Boulle's novel and various unused treatments. In Hamm's script, an ape astronaut from a distant planet unleashes a devastating virus on Earth. Scientists go to the astronaut's planet, where apes hunt humans; they locate a cure, but return to find Earth overrun by simians. Schwarzenegger remained attached, but Fox found the script underwhelming. Columbus left the project in 1995 after his mother's death and James Cameron stepped in to produce. Cameron intended to go in a "very different direction" with the script, but following the critical and financial success of his film Titanic, he dropped out of the project. Fox approached a series of directors to take over, without success.
caption: Tim Burton, director of the 2001 Planet of the Apes
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