It used to be called Caesar, but now, tentatively it's Planet of the Apes: Rise of the Apes. Fox and Chernin Entertainment have announced a release date for the Apes prequel / reboot, of June 24, 2011. They'd better get cracking!
Intriguingly, Peter Jackson's WETA digital FX company, will apparently be providing "photo-realistic" digital apes, as opposed to the complex make-up jobs we've always seen before. So Andy Serkis is sitting by the phone, and Rick Baker, whose extraordinary work was the redeeming feature of the Tim Burton fiasco, will sadly not be getting another shot at the title.
Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist, Birdsong) is attached to direct, and the script, which previously passed through the hands of Scott Frank and Jamie Moss, is currently credited to Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver.
The film was originally conceived as some sort of reworking of fourth-original-instalment Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (the one with the Che Guevara ape, Caesar, staging the simian revolution that leads to the state of affairs Charlton Heston discovers in the original). The updated thrust is set in present-day San Francisco, where genetic engineers (idiots, damn them all to hell) are experimenting with creating enhanced ape intelligence. The results don't bode well for humanity.
Obviously, we've been burned relatively recently, and it's not as if a lot of the original extended Apes franchise isn't extremely ropey. But in spite of ourselves, we're quite excited anyway. There's something about Planet of the Apes that's just cool, and with Wyatt and WETA on board, it may be about to get the makeover it deserves.