Using the working title Caesar, Frank was determined to pen a script that would steer clear of the hammier elements of the Apes series in order to create a more serious-minded sci-fi. However, just when it seemed that progress was being made, Frank left the project along with producer Scott Rudin over a dispute with the studio concerning the film’s direction.

Not to be discouraged, Fox pressed ahead with its grand plan and in May 2010, the studio announced that a new Planet Of The Apes prequel would arrive in just over a year’s time. That’s right, they even went as far as to name a release date, with 24 June 2011 marked as the day the apes would storm the multiplex.

The project was given the working title Rise Of The Apes, and a loose plot outline was released by Fox in an official statement. “Rise Of The Apes is an origin story in the truest sense of the term,” began the blurb. “Set in present day San Francisco, the film is a reality-based cautionary tale, a science-fiction /science-fact blend, where man’s own experiments with genetic engineering lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy.”

It’s a synopsis that sums the film up fairly neatly, but how did Fox manage to whip up such a coherent plot from a script they had supposedly had problems with? Well, Jamie Moss, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver must share the credit around between them as all three screenwriters were brought in at various points to lick Scott Frank’s original script into shape.

The result was the fabled “hard sci-fi” that Fox has apparently been looking for. Now all they needed was a director who could bring it to life…