Planet of the Apes In 1999, Fox hired William Broyles, Jr. to write a new script. Fox insisted on a July 2001 release date, but otherwise offered Broyles considerable creative license. This prospect attracted director Tim Burton, who hoped to do a "re-imagining" of "Planet of the Apes". Burton found the production arduous, largely due to Fox's strict release schedule. The studio budgeted the film at $100 million, meaning Broyles' ambitious script had to be altered to reduce costs; Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal worked on rewrites even as the film entered production. The tight schedule meant all stages of production were rushed. The
Escape from the Planet of the Apes with much ingenuity and promise ... the film is painfully sentimental in its attitude to the chimps, with Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowall overplaying and vulgarising their former roles to the point where it's hard to feel much concern about their final destruction." Escape from the Planet of the Apes Escape from the Planet of the Apes is a 1971 science fiction film directed by Don Taylor and written by Paul Dehn. It stars Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Bradford Dillman and Ricardo Montalbán. It is the third of five films in the original "Planet of the Apes" series produced by