Before getting to the headline, it’s fairly well known that Rod Serling wrote the original Planet of The Apes (1968) screenplay. It was reworked by Michael Wilson, and he was given a co-writing credit.
I was delighted to discover a graphic novel called Planet of The Apes: Visionaries on Google Play Books. There is a free sample available to check out here. The graphic novel by Dana Gould seeks to tell Rod Serling’s original screenplay of the adaptation of the novel by Pierre Boulle. I’m reading it now.
Enter James Cameron.
Around the time Cameron was working on Titanic, he was courted by 20th Century Fox to pen a script for the reboot of Planet of The Apes and Arnold Schwarzenegger would have starred in it.
(Yes, Arnold would have been in an Apes movie, too!)
The leak suggests that the film would have opened much like the original, with vintage footage depicting Taylor’s spacecraft crashing on Earth two thousand years in the future. However, the film would then diverge, taking place thirty years later and featuring a new group of astronauts from the 90s landing in the ape-dominated future.
What James Cameron’s Planet Of The Apes Reboot Would Have Been About
One of the more exciting parts of Cameron’s script was that it would show Taylor alive and well after the events of the original 1968 film. I realize he was alive at the start of the second film. And Cameron’s plan was to have Charlton Heston’s replay his iconic role (about 30 years later, so the age would have worked) and he would have a meaty role in Cameron’s reboot.
That could have been a lot better than what we ultimately received in Tim Burton’s Planet of The Apes reboot. Then again, maybe it would have leaned toward the disaster reboot/sequel that was Terminator: Dark Fate. Cameron’s record behind the director’s chair is better than when he produces or writes screenplays only.
We’ll never know. Heston is gone, Arnold is too old and Cameron has long since moved on.
The most recent reboot of Apes movies were good, so maybe they’ll hold off awhile before somebody gets in that saddle again (wishful thinking, I know).
Would you have wanted to see James Cameron’s Planet of the Apes reboot?
It is interesting to revisit the movies that could have been. I know, there have been many, many films that shoulda, coulda, woulda been, but in the case of reboots, this is one that I actually would have been interested in. Moreso, if Cameron had stepped up and directed it as well.
What do you think of this proposed film? Yay or nay?
Movies, Movies, Movies 