The original Planet of the Apes is an all-time classic, but the beloved movie wasn’t the first crack at bringing Pierre Boulle’s work to the big screen. Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling wrote an early draft for the screenplay, featuring a ton of moments that never made it into the final film. And now, his story is being used as the basis for a new comic.
Image: 20th Century Fox
Published by Boom Studios, Planet of the Apes: Visionaries will use Serling’s original screenplay – which took the writer years to adapt from Boulle’s original novel – as well as early concept art for the 1968 movie, as its base to tell a new version of the story under the auspices of writer Dana Gould and artist Chad Lewis.
Paolo Rivera’s cover for the graphic novel already includes one major departure that Serling’s screenplay had from the final film: Taylor (or, as he was named in Serling’s script, Thomas) discovering a whole civilisation of Apes in a pastiche of then-contemporary American life.
According to Gould, the book will feel right at place with Serling’s past genre work. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter:
As someone who knows the original films by heart, I’m honored to present Rod Serling’s original vision to the public. It’s the world you know, yet it’s also very different; very political, very Rod Serling. For me, this is all about him.
Planet of the Apes: Visionaries is set to hit shelves this August, as part of Boom’s celebration of the franchise’s 50th birthday.
[THR]
Comments
3 responses to “A New Comic Will Imagine The Planets Of The Apes We Never Saw On Screen”
Wasn’t that something at the end of one of the movies? The guy tries to go home but crash lands in a ape-owned 1960-1980’s period?
The original novel and film’s twist was that the
planet that the astronauts landed on was earth in the far future where primates had evolved and created a society similar to our own and humans had devolved to a chimp like state.As good as the new films are, they sadly missed the point of the original concept.
Cool