And here we thought Taylor Lautner was aiming to be the most in-demand actor in all of Hollywoodland. But it would appear that a most unlikely candidate is rising up through casting directors’ phone lists to challenge him for the title: James Franco. According to Deadline, he’s now reportedly in talks to star in 20th Fox’s Rise Of The Apes.
The studio has been plugging away at the **Planet Of The Apes **prequel concept for years, and finally seems ready to get one on the screen whether we want it or not.
Rupert Wyatt is directing Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa’s current draft of the script, which follows human scientists performing genetic experiments on apes in modern-day San Francisco. Naturally, things go badly wrong and agressive, intelligent simians are the result, which sparks a conflict between the two species. One that will eventually drive Charlton Heston to exclaim, “You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”
Or, if you made it through to the end of Tim Burton’s remake, to make Mark Wahlberg look a bit confused at Ape-braham Lincoln sitting atop his monument in alt-Washington.
The team from Weta are signed up to provide CG monkey business and Fox wants this one in our cinemas by next June.
Apparently, given how impressed the Fox suits were with Franco’s work on Danny Boyle’s real-life drama 127 Hours, they figured he’d naturally want to frown a lot as smart apes took on humanity. He had a sit down with Wyatt, who pitched him the concept last week and whaddya know: he’s up for it!
Why, it seems like mere hours ago we were reporting about Franco locking down a deal to star in comedy Ricky Stanicky. Maybe that’s because it was just hours ago…