Planet of the Apes/Trivia

The 1968 film

 * Zaius was originally going to be played by Edward G Robinson, but his ill health did not mix well with the heavy makeup, and the part had to go to Maurice Evans.
 * Also, Linda Harrison played Zira in early makeup test footage, but was later cast as the human Nova.
 * Charlton Heston's voice during his famous "get your dirty paws off me" speech was made more realistic by the fact Heston was quite ill during filming of the scene.
 * The early scripts for the movie had a closer resemblence to Pierre Boulle's novel, but budget constraints forced the change to the primitive ape society of the film.
 * Pierre Boule wrote a sequel draft called 'Planet Of The Men', which can be seen at Hunter's POTA Archive website (just Google it). It involves Nova and Taylor having a son named Sirius, who eventually leads a human uprising. The apes lose their intelligence and are back to being animals by the end. The last scene has Zaius doing tricks in a cage in a circus.
 * Interestingly, there was a sort of segregation behind the scenes during filming; the chimpanzee actors ate with other chimps, gorillas with gorillas, and orangutans with orangutans.
 * Once, some of the gorilla actors rode from the makeup area to the set in a convertible with the top down, wearing their full gorilla makeup, wigging out some observers on the way.
 * The Statue Of Liberty scene was based on a scene from an earlier sci-fi story.
 * The first film's script was written by Twilight Zone's Rod Serling.
 * All-Star Cast
 * Cash Cow Franchise: One decade before Star Wars it was raking on money from sequels and merchandise.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes

 * Executive Meddling: Charlton Heston didn't want the original film to succumb to Sequelitis, so he instead rewrote the ending to be the final destruction of the Earth (thus making any possibility of a sequel impossible).
 * It didn't work.
 * Hey, It's That Voice: Paul Frees gives the Insignificant Little Blue Planet speech at the end.
 * The Other Darrin: Roddy McDowall wasn't available, so David Watson plays Cornelius this time out.
 * McDowall still appears in the Stock Footage from the first film that opens the film, though.
 * Prop Recycling: some sets were from Hello Dolly!.
 * What Could Have Been: Taylor was supposed to be the main character. But since Heston didn't want to be in a sequel, the script was rewritten to feature Brent. Also, Taylor, Nova, and Brent were meant to survive and help establish peaceful relations between the humans and the surviving apes.