Quick Cuts: 20th Century Fox to make prequel about “damn dirty” Apes, and other stories

  • Just in case you weren’t convinced that New Zealand’s WETA Digital was the go-to SFX house these days, 20th Century Fox will be using them to produce all of the genetically altered-primates in CGI for their film Rise of the Apes, a prequel to the classic sci-fi movie series which was begun by 1968’s Planet of the Apes. The movie will be directed by Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist) from a script by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (The Relic), and will be released in the U.S. on June 24, 2011. (Source: The Hollywood Reporter)
  • Dashing my hopes for a female-powered view on Captain America, British actor Toby Jones has entered the final round of negotiations to become the movie’s second villain, Arnim Zola. He’ll join Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull as Chris Evans’ antagonists, and I think I’m starting to see how the storyline’s shaping up and will end with Cap on ice and Zola in a robot suit. (Source: The Hollywood Reporter‘s Heat Vision blog)
  • Finally, if you’ve ever wanted to see all of Metropolis, the sci-fi silent film by Fritz Lang that inspired Blade Runner amongst others, head on over to the Film Forum in New York City today where they will be showing the film in its original complete version for the first time to audiences since its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in 1927. Hidden away in a private film archive in Buenos Aires, we have Argentine film archivists Fernando Peña and Paula Félix-Didier to thank for rescuing the movie from the bureaucratic red tape. The most interesting quote from the story?

    “It’s no longer a science-fiction film,” said Martin Koerber, a German film archivist and historian who supervised the latest restoration and the earlier one in 2001. “The balance of the story has been given back. It’s now a film that encompasses many genres, an epic about conflicts that are ages old. The science-fiction disguise is now very, very thin.”

    Additional screenings in other cities and a DVD will follow later this year. (Source: The New York Times)