NEW YORK -- A slow news week? That's Tim Burton's assessment of the rampant rumours that have dogged his wild, $100-million "reimagining" of Planet Of The Apes.
Specifically, he denies that the movie -- with a human Mark Wahlberg, and chimps Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Roth -- was ever in danger of missing its release date this Friday.
"I read this in a major newspaper this week," says Burton, "and I was, like, first of all, 'What?' And second of all, 'Who cares?'" says Burton, who admits that late effects from George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic did have them working to the wire.
"I mean, how is this news? What person who's working on a film isn't, like, going crazy or working on it right to the end? Those last two weeks you're wanting to kill yourself. They have to grab the film can from your clenched fist. What would be a lot more interesting would be if you found a filmmaker who says, 'Great, I finished my movie, and handed it to the studio two weeks before release. I'm going on vacation now.' "
Producer Richard Zanuck, who was also the studio executive who greenlit the 1968 original Planet Of The Apes with Charlton Heston, admits there were white knuckles at one point. But he says that all parties knew for at least the past two weeks they'd be on time for Friday's release. The FX in question were space scenes involving Wahlberg's astronaut character, who ends up on a planet ruled by apes after encountering a space-time anomaly. "Once you get those last pieces, you still have to duplicate it 4,000 times to have enough prints. That takes weeks, and we got those ILM shots a few weeks ago."
Burton, fresh from a promotional tour in Japan for the film, was happy to address other rumours and contentious points. Among them:
n Ape-human sex: There was buzz about an early script with a physical love scene involving Wahlberg's character Leo Davidson and Bonham-Carter's Ari, a human-loving chimp scientist who fights to save homo sapiens from the military apes (including Roth as the psychopathic Gen. Thade and a gorilla general named Attar played by Michael Clarke Duncan). Ari acts very coquettish with Leo, but what about those rumours?
"You mean going all the way? No!" Burton says. "I read those stories too. And I'm like, 'Oh my God! What kind of people are on the Internet? I mean animal sex scenes? I don't know if that's even possible in a Hollywood American movie. It's true we made lots of jokes about things we could've done. But we would never have been able to show that movie anywhere."
n The ending: The original Planet Of The Apes had one of the most famous endings in history -- against the backdrop of the Statue Of Liberty, the ape planet turns out to be a nuclear-ravaged Earth. All we'll say about this one is it's totally out in left field, and reminded me of those X-Files episodes that end so crazily, you're compelled to watch the next episode to see how the heck they'll explain it.
Despite that, and the fact that the entire cast is contractually obliged to do a sequel, Burton denies creating that scene with a sequel in mind. He also denies rumours that at least five endings were filmed, though he admits they didn't shoot the current ending until two-thirds of the way through filming. Burton once vowed after a miserable experience on Batman Returns never to shoot a sequel again. Asked if that still stands, he said enigmatically, "Who knows? Today I'm saying no to lunch."
He does say that working on Apes and Batman were similar in that both had mythical status and legions of fans. "You're making a new version and you're changing things, and at the same time you don't want to piss anybody off. I really don't know what the expectations are out there.
"It's like when I saw Godzilla. It pissed me off that it didn't look like Godzilla. But I thought that was just me, I didn't realize it was widespread."
Specifically, he denies that the movie -- with a human Mark Wahlberg, and chimps Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Roth -- was ever in danger of missing its release date this Friday.
"I read this in a major newspaper this week," says Burton, "and I was, like, first of all, 'What?' And second of all, 'Who cares?'" says Burton, who admits that late effects from George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic did have them working to the wire.
"I mean, how is this news? What person who's working on a film isn't, like, going crazy or working on it right to the end? Those last two weeks you're wanting to kill yourself. They have to grab the film can from your clenched fist. What would be a lot more interesting would be if you found a filmmaker who says, 'Great, I finished my movie, and handed it to the studio two weeks before release. I'm going on vacation now.' "
Producer Richard Zanuck, who was also the studio executive who greenlit the 1968 original Planet Of The Apes with Charlton Heston, admits there were white knuckles at one point. But he says that all parties knew for at least the past two weeks they'd be on time for Friday's release. The FX in question were space scenes involving Wahlberg's astronaut character, who ends up on a planet ruled by apes after encountering a space-time anomaly. "Once you get those last pieces, you still have to duplicate it 4,000 times to have enough prints. That takes weeks, and we got those ILM shots a few weeks ago."
Burton, fresh from a promotional tour in Japan for the film, was happy to address other rumours and contentious points. Among them:
n Ape-human sex: There was buzz about an early script with a physical love scene involving Wahlberg's character Leo Davidson and Bonham-Carter's Ari, a human-loving chimp scientist who fights to save homo sapiens from the military apes (including Roth as the psychopathic Gen. Thade and a gorilla general named Attar played by Michael Clarke Duncan). Ari acts very coquettish with Leo, but what about those rumours?
"You mean going all the way? No!" Burton says. "I read those stories too. And I'm like, 'Oh my God! What kind of people are on the Internet? I mean animal sex scenes? I don't know if that's even possible in a Hollywood American movie. It's true we made lots of jokes about things we could've done. But we would never have been able to show that movie anywhere."
n The ending: The original Planet Of The Apes had one of the most famous endings in history -- against the backdrop of the Statue Of Liberty, the ape planet turns out to be a nuclear-ravaged Earth. All we'll say about this one is it's totally out in left field, and reminded me of those X-Files episodes that end so crazily, you're compelled to watch the next episode to see how the heck they'll explain it.
Despite that, and the fact that the entire cast is contractually obliged to do a sequel, Burton denies creating that scene with a sequel in mind. He also denies rumours that at least five endings were filmed, though he admits they didn't shoot the current ending until two-thirds of the way through filming. Burton once vowed after a miserable experience on Batman Returns never to shoot a sequel again. Asked if that still stands, he said enigmatically, "Who knows? Today I'm saying no to lunch."
He does say that working on Apes and Batman were similar in that both had mythical status and legions of fans. "You're making a new version and you're changing things, and at the same time you don't want to piss anybody off. I really don't know what the expectations are out there.
"It's like when I saw Godzilla. It pissed me off that it didn't look like Godzilla. But I thought that was just me, I didn't realize it was widespread."
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