That’s right, there will be no monkey-suits this time around! Fox have announced that Peter Jackson’s visual guns-for-hire WETA Digital will be in charge of swapping plastic for pixels in creating a new breed of “photo-realistic” digital apes.

Despite the usual “using the groundbreaking technology from Avatar” bumf that now seems forever destined to follow WETA wherever they go, there are no plans to shoot this one in 3D, although we won’t believe it until the whole thing is in the can. The temptation for Fox to add it in post-production may yet prove too great…
 
To be honest, we’re in two minds about this element of the film, particularly as Rick Baker’s superb makeup was the one saving grace from Tim Burton’s turkey. If WETA are going to pull of some truly credible apes, they’ll need a motion-capture expert with experience in channelling his evolutionary ancestors. Who could that be then?