Thanks in no small part to some tremendous work from Weta Digital and Andy Serkis, last year's Rise of the Planet of the Apes surprised by being one of those rare summer blockbusters that finds traction both commercially and critically.  The Planet of the Apes prequel-reboot-thing rode a wave of tremendous goodwill to a much bigger gross than anticipated, and 20th Century Fox has slowly been pulling together that audiences very much want to see.

Seth Rogen has come a long way since playing the sardonic Ken on Paul Feig and Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks.  Not only has he become a bona-fide movie star, but he and he and creative partner Evan Goldberg have written and/or produced films including Pineapple Express, 50/50, The Green Hornet, and Superbad.  Now, Rogen and Goldberg are on the verge of making their feature directorial debut with the tentatively-titled Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse, in which Rogen would star alongside fellow Undeclared and Knocked Up alum Jay Baruchel.

After becoming a surprise hit with both audiences and critics at the end of the summer, Rise of the Planet of the Apes arrives on Blu-ray and DVD today.  In the film, Caesar the hyper-intelligent chimpanzee – a motion-capture performance by Andy Serkis and the experts at Weta Digital that Fox is actively building an Oscar campaign around – goes from a happy little chimp to the leader of a full-blown simian revolution that tears through the streets of San Francisco.  Well, now Caesar and his ape cohorts can tear up your living room via Blu-ray, and in order to promote the home entertainment release, 20th Century Fox recruited Australian street artist Anthony Lister to bring Caesar's invasion home to Los Angeles.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD on December 13th is last summer's blockbuster hit film Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a prequel/reboot of the classic Charlton Heston sci-fi series. The film is directed by Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist) and begins to tell the story of how our Earth was eventually taken over by super-intelligent primates and became the futuristic, Ape-controlled Earth that Heston discovers in the original film. The movie features an all-star cast of actors that includes Academy Award-nominated actor James Franco (Spider-Man), Frieda Pinto (Immortals), Tom Felton (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1), Brian Cox (X2: X-Men United), John Lithgow (Shrek), and motion-capture actor Andy Serkis (King Kong, The Adventures of Tintin) as Caesar, the future leader of the apes revolution. 

IAR is proud to present an exclusive behind-the-scenes featurette about the making of Rise of the Planet of the Apes and just how the filmmakers were able to digitally create the apes using performance capture technology. In the clip, director Rupert Wyatt, and motion-capture actor Terry Notary, who played Rocket and Bright Eyes in the film, discuss the technology they used to create all of the primates for the movie.

A decade of ubiquitous superhero movies have made the following sentence possible: Captain America has replaced Harry Osborn in a hitman movie starring the new General Zod.  Following the departure of James Franco, Chris Evans has joined the cast of The Iceman, which stars Michael Shannon as the title character, real life professional murderer Richard Kuklinski.  To clarify, Evans plays Captain America in Captain America: The First Avenger and the upcoming The Avengers, while Franco played Harry Osborn in all three Spider-Man films, and Shannon is currently filming his role as the villain in the Superman reboot Man of Steel.  Moving on.*

In the wake of Eddie Murphy's departure from his previously announced gig as the host of 84th Academy Awards Ceremony yesterday, the one idea for a replacement host that seemed to make a whole lot of people happy was the notion that The Muppets could do it.  That was, in all likelihood, never a viable option for a multitude of reasons, mostly practical, but now the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has decided on a willing replacement.  If Murphy was an interesting, potentially bold, choice, and The Muppets were unfeasibly bold, then the actual host for 2012 is a few notches in the other direction, since it's not Billy Crystal's first time as the clown at the Oscar rodeo.

In the months leading up to its August release, Rise of the Planet of the Apes seemed to have the makings of a shamblefest in the vein of that 2001 Planet of the Apes remake, with release date shifts, title changes, and a general air of possible mediocrity.  Then the film rolled out to much critical goodwill and excellent word of mouth, leading it to earn almost half a billion dollars globally.  After such success, 20th Century Fox seemed to be waffling on a sequel that would continue what was clearly meant to be the first in a prequel/reboot franchise.  Apparently the studio wasn't dallying, however, as Deadline reports Fox just closed a deal with Andy Serkis to once again portray simian revolutionary Caesar.  Not only that, but the studio is planning a big campaign to snag a Best Actor Oscar for the motion capture performance.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes surprised a lot of people by closing out this last summer with one last dyed in the wool blockbuster, earning around $430 million globally, and now 20th Century Fox has announced that the semi-prequel-reboot will be available to watch legally in the home on December 13th for North American consumers and December 7th in international territories.  So you'll be able to watch Andy Serkis as Caesar the Chimp kickstarting the simian takeover of Earth just in time for the holiday season.  The impressive visual effects by Weta Digital will be explored in detail through special features on the Blu-ray, which will also include twelve deleted scenes.

We learned earlier this month that the film's original ending had a principal character meeting an untimely and probably depressing end, but it's unknown whether or not that alternate ending will be amongst the special features.  Based on the titles of the twelve deleted scenes, it looks like we might not be seeing a different ending on the Rise of the Planet of the Apes Blu-ray.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a combination prequel and reboot, and even though it abandoned the original's conceit of an Earth ravaged by nuclear war ("You maniacs!  You blew it up!  Damn you!"), obviously it wasn't going to conclude with the California Highway Patrol successfully suppressing the simian uprising instigated by Caesar.  While the conclusion of Rise of the Planet of the Apes that helped the film gross more than $400 million globally over the last two months wasn't one that made humanity's future seem too bright, apparently that ending was a last-minute replacement for a considerably more downbeat version.  Naturally, since we're talking about the end of a movie that is still in theaters, we're venturing into spoiler territory here.

Three weeks ago to the day, Seth Rogen provided an update on Jay and Seth vs. The Apocalypse, the postapocalyptic comedy that will be the directorial debut not just of Rogen, but also of his longtime writing and producing partner Evan Goldberg.  After clearing up that he will not be appearing in Judd Apatow's next film, a Knocked Up spin-off tentatively titled This Is Forty, he said that production on the film starring himself and Jay Baruchel as themselves, is set to commence in February of 2012.  He also mentioned that, in developing the story, he and Goldberg had expanded the cast of characters.  Today, Rogen elaborated on that claim, saying that Jonah Hill, James Franco, Craig Robinson, and Danny McBride will all co-star.  Hopefully.