Hollywood just loves to cash in on remakes (i.e. Goonies), sequels, prequels and adaptations in lieu of taking risks with brand new material, and the saga continues with Ghostbusters 3 and Rise of the Apes .
Bill Murray has always been vocal about Ghostbusters 3, stating that “it’s all a bunch of crock” and even inciting Dan Aykroyd to tell him to “stop acting like a jerk.” But though Murray was initially more than merely put off by the film–even jokingly suggesting that he’d only do it if Venkman was a ghost (which, rumor has it, the writers took to heart)–he changed his tune this past spring.
“It’s still one of the biggest movies of all time,” he told GQ. “And ever since that story broke, everywhere I go people are like, ‘So are you gonna make that movie?’ I was down in Austin at South by Southwest, and you go at it hard down there—fun but, man, you need to sleep for days afterwards. Anyhow, I got into it one night with a bunch of younger people who were like, Oh, I love Peter Venkman! I grew up with Peter Venkman! We got to talking, and the more we talked about it, the more I thought, Oh Christ, I should just do this thing.” So there ya go.
I was actually one of the lucky people to experience a completely random Venkman spotting while he was at South By, though I didn’t get into the discussion with him. We can expect Ghostbusters 3 to show itself in 2012, with much of the original cast and some new rumored actors.
Planet of the Apes is another big-budget franchise sure to make some cash. While Tim Burton remade Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1968 original, there were four other POTA films to come before Marky Mark encountered the angry primates in Burton’s film.
One of these, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes , from 1972, is about an ape named Caesar (son of Cornelius and Zira) who leads an ape uprising against the humans, since humans abuse the “dumb” apes as slaves. Though there’s some tricky time travel stuff going on (Cornelius and Zira went back in time in the movie prior to set the future on a new path), it’s supposed to reveal how the apes came to dominate and enslave humans on Earth.
Now, 20th Century Fox will release a prequel to Burton’s version (I think) called Rise of the Apes, out on June 24th, 2011. Scientists are working on a cure for Alzheimer’s, using apes as test subjects. One ape named Caesar becomes increasingly intelligent and cunning until he leads an army of apes in an uprising against the human race. Sound familiar?
The film is purported to star Tom Felton, Brian Cox, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow and James Franco, among others. This time around, and for the first time in Apes history, the simians will be CGI. Way to ruin the magic of the makeup, which even Burton’s remake got right. I wonder what Slimer’s fate will be.
