With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that Tim Burton might have bitten off a bit more than he could chew with his ill-fated 2001 Planet of the Apes remake.
Envisioned as a bold and exotic adaptation of its iconic source material, Burton’s Planet of the Apes ultimately failed to capture the same level of success as the original films.
In spite of his creative hopes for sparking an entirely new line of Planet of the Apesmovies, Burton’s ambitions for the franchise came and went with its one-and-down 2001 film.
Providing a creative overhaul of the entire Planet of the Apes saga, Burton’s 2001 film starred Mark Wahlberg as Leo Davidson, a daring astronaut who finds himself stranded on a strange planet ruled by talking apes who have long since enslaved humanity.
Starring Wahlberg and an ensemble cast that included the likes of Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Clarke Duncan, Kris Kristofferson and Paul Giamatti, Planet of the Apes was projected to be the summer blockbuster of 2001.
In spite of its financial success at the box office, however, many viewers and critics were divided over the movie’s tone, pacing and infamously polarizing twist ending.
As critic Roger Ebert said of the film, “The movie is great-looking. Rick Baker’s makeup is convincing even in the extreme closeups, and his apes sparkle with personality and presence. The sets and locations give us a proper sense of alien awe. Tim Burton made a film that’s respectful to the original, and respectable in itself, but that’s not enough. Ten years from now, it will be the 1968 version that people are still renting.”
Some, like Rolling Stone‘s Peter Travers, were even more blunt in their assessment of the movie. “Call it a letdown, worsened by the forces of shoddy screenwriting,” Travers wrote. “To quote Heston in both films, ‘Damn them, damn them all'”