Nothing captures the imagination like an anthropomorphic monkey. Ever since a stop-motion King Kong scaled the dizzy heights of the Empire State Building in Merian C. Cooper’s 1933 classic, ominous ‘What if?’ stories about our closest living relatives have proven a surefire way to get audiences’ bums on seats.
Perhaps, then, we shouldn’t be surprised that the Planet of the Apes franchise has endured for so long, but it’s still remarkable that a premise introduced in 1968 remains compelling enough to attract Marvel-level investment from increasingly risk-averse studios.
