Movie Mr Brooks

A Movie's Believable Apes

LOS ANGELES — “I run a business, not a petting zoo.”

Tom Rothman, co-chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment, didn’t utter that sentiment — it’s a line from “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” which Fox will release on Friday — but it has certainly crossed his mind.

When Fox decided it wanted to move ahead with a “Planet of the Apes” prequel, the studio had a decision to make. Should it rely on actors outfitted with primate prosthetics, as the previous films in the science-fiction franchise did? What about using live apes, albeit showbiz ones? Or digitally created monkeys? All of the above?

“Live apes were considered and quickly abandoned — this is a story about animals being exploited and, um, it would have been morally wrong to exploit animals to make the movie,” said Rupert Wyatt, who directed the film. “Ultimately, digital recreations — some scenes have 150 apes, after all — was most efficient.”

Hollywood’s digital hocus-pocus has come a long way, but Fox still worried that audiences would smell a Jar Jar Binks.

“For this to work, people have to believe they are real chimps,” Mr. Rothman said. “It’s a live-action movie told from the animal point of view. That has never been done before because the technology hasn’t been there. Until now.”

Mr. Rothman said “Avatar” gave him the confidence to bet $100 million on a movie reliant on digitally created characters. To make the lead apes look as realistic as possible, Fox and Chernin Entertainment, the studio’s producing partner on the film, covered performance artists with motion-capture sensors and then fed that data into computers; visual effects artists at Weta Digital, which also worked on “Avatar,” then spent six months turning the images into primates.

“There are moments in our movie when you really have to pinch yourself because it looks so real,” Mr. Wyatt said.

If he’s not right, Fox is about to make monkeys out of a lot of moviegoers.

Mel Brooks-produced film planned in R.I. - Quad Cities Online

GRS, a consulting andproduction management company at 1724 4th Ave., Rock Island, launched in June to help attract and assist other Quad-Cities film and television production. It's separate from GreatRiverProductions, which was formed to make the $15 million computer-generated film "Troll," which is still waiting for final legislative approval of a change in Illinois film tax-credit law to start production.

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