13 Planet Of The Apes Facts That Will Blow Your Mind

7. There Was Originally Plans For Interspecies Breeding

There was a kinkily bestial overtone to Boulle's description of Ulysee Merou's relationship with the chimp Zira in his novel: "the sentiment that came to life between us had no name on Earth or any other region of the Cosmos." It was obviously difficult to mirror that transgressive frisson onscreen, and Kim Hunter's Zira winces, "But you're so damned ugly!" as Taylor gives her an affectionate full-on kiss. Before Burton's re-imagining debuted in 2001, there was conjecture that the monkey love might go further but, despite Helena Bonham-Carter's strangely cutesy ape-femme makeup, it was only a rumour. But Beneath The€ did come close to breaking the species boundaries, as screenwriter Paul Dehn - who created the ingeniously pragmatic concepts for the first three sequels - described: "I wanted a more optimistic end€ than the destruction of Earth by the Doomsday Bomb, but my own end, the birth of a child half-human and half-monkey, proved intractable in terms of makeup, and anyway it was thought that Man-Ape miscegenation might lose us our G certificate." Indeed. The idea was quietly abandoned but a shot of the makeup test survives.