CinemaCon: Rise of the Planet of the Apes Sequel a Go
While we're working on our write-up of the recently-completed 20th Century Fox presentation at CinameCon--including first footage from diverse movies such as the R-rated comedy Neighborhood Watch, the (presumably) PG comedy Parental Guidance, the upcoming action sequel Taken 2, and Ang Lee's epic Life of Pi (you can read that here)--Fox Co-Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of Fox Filmed Entertainment Tom Rothman dropped a hint that we may be seeing a sequel to last year's hit Rise of the Planet of the Apes very soon.
The sequel was mentioned as part of a list of movies Fox plans to start production on by summer's end, which included The Wolverine, Steven Spielberg's Robopocalypse and Shawn Levy's comedy The Internship, starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.
Since the first two of those are already set for summer 2013 release dates, is there a chance that 20th Century Fox might be pushing for a Rise of the Planet of the Apes sequel to be a third? Or maybe they'll save that one for the fall or holiday slate, which is still fairly open.
As far as we know, they still haven't confirmed that director Rupert Wyatt would be returning and we assumed that Andy Serkis may be busy doing second unit on Peter Jackson's two-part The Hobbit, although he has already signed for the sequel, so could they both make time this fall to start shooting this sequel?
These are questions we'll hopefully have answers to very soon.
Look for the rest of our write-up on the Fox presentation later today.
Scott Z. Burns has been tapped to work on Fox’s sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Chernin Entertainment is producing.
The project continues the story set forth in last year’s critical and financial hit movie featuring simians that are given human intelligence and subsequently break out of their animal facility. At the same time, a virus breaks out that causes the collapse of human society.
The new project is taking the story to the next level, with the apes on the path to emerge as society’s new rulers.
After the movie proved to be a hit, Fox locked up Andy Serkis, who acted as Caesar, the lead ape, and has director Rupert Wyatt on deck to return as well.
Original writers Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa were also broght back to write a draft of the sequel.
Burns is well versed in epidemics and breakdowns of society’s orders, having penned Contagion, Steven Soderbergh’s all-star virus thriller that had many hiding under the covers and Purelling their hands.
He also wrote The Informant! and worked on The Bourne Ultimatum. He was also a producer on the landmark documentary on global warming An Inconvenient Truth.
Burns is repped by UTA, Anonymous Content and Jackoway Tyerman.
