The original Planet of the Apes film was released in 1968, a labor of love for all involved and it was a huge success, both critically and commercially.
Now, director Matt Reeves is on the cusp of unleashing the third entry in that new series, War for the Planet of the Apes, with Andy Serkis’ warrior ape Caesar continuing the bloody battle with the rogue humans inadvertently started in the previous entry, 2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
The Planet of the Apes movies inspired both a short-lived live-action series (itself edited down to a series of TV movies) and an even shorter-lived animated series, as well as a wealth of merchandise, comics and toys.
Later, Tim Burton hooked up with Apes legend Richard Zanuck to make a new Planet of the Apes movie and of course, more recently, the series was revived again, forgoing prosthetic make up effects for state of the art digital effects and a more operatic sense of apocalyptic dread.