Apes Sequels Delayed
Planet of the Apes producer Richard Zanuck told SCI FI Wire that a sequel to the 2001 film will be delayed. Zanuck said that Fox told him that it does not want to exhaust the franchise with too many sequels right away. "The idea is to space it out now," Zanuck said in an interview. "The studio doesn't think that a sequel has to be made immediately. They made a lot of money off the picture, but the theory, at least what they're telling me, is that every three years or more [they will make one]."
After the first Planet of the Apes movie in 1968, four films sequels followed rapidly until 1973, as well as a TV series in 1974 and TV movies in 1975 and 1981. The series lay dormant for 20 years after that. "They don't want the franchise to just burn out and be finished again for another 20 years," Zanuck said. "I don't know whether they're right or not, but that seems to be the idea."
Zanuck said the next film could pick up right where the last one left off, with Leo Davidson's (Mark Wahlberg) further adventures on an ape world. "They have a deal with Mark Wahlberg in place, but I don't know what their ultimate plan is," Zanuck said.
