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David Mumpower: While I am less surprised than the rest of you, I demonstrated the same thought process as Shalimar, at least initially. I mean, I understand the decision from a financial perspective. Nobody ever thinks about it now, but Planet of the Apes’ 2001 debut inflation adjusts to $91.9 million. That’s a mega-opening in any box office era. In terms of storyline, however, Tim Burton’s decision to do that WTF ending on top of his accidentally making a horrible movie buried any hope of a sequel in the short term. Still, studio numbers crunchers are paid a lot of money to understand the valuation of their various franchises. They knew from the numbers that people like the concept of a planet full of apes. What was done next is what impresses me the most, though.

When another Planet of the Apes movie was debated, the people involved didn’t ask “Why?” Instead, they asked, “How?” This is the point Reagen touched upon above that exemplifies the difference between making a prequel just because you can and making a prequel because you have a great idea. If we look at the most established moment from the original Planet of the Apes, in fact, we can see that lingering idea of how Earth That Was became Earth That Never Should Be, the one ruled by apes…and not the friendly ones who tell us they love us through sign language.

Planet of the Apes at its core is a story about a battle for dominion between two species and I felt the trailers demonstrated a fundamental understanding of this. This has been sold as a tale of well-intended science run amok, and it has that money shot in the trailer of a guy standing in the middle of a tiered structure, looking up at an entire clan of hyper-intelligent simians. I’ve believed for a while now that Rise of the Planet of the Apes looked better than it had any right to appear, and I can assure you I will be checking out Edwin’s recommendation, The Escapist, in the near future. Rupert Wyatt just did something Tim Burton could not: he made a commercial Planet of the Apes movie that is also really damned good. He just identified himself as a director to watch in the coming years.

Name brand matters. Just ask Calvin Klein.

Kim Hollis: Given the triumph of name recognition over the last two weeks, do you consider titles that sell on their own, such as Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Smurfs, to be a smarter choice for studios than paying a famous star a lot of money to maybe open a movie and maybe not?

Edwin Davies: I think we need to clarify what we mean by "name recognition", if only because it doesn't necessarily have positive connotations. In the case of The Smurfs it does because that brand is wrapped up in cozy nostalgia and comes complete with a set of identifiable characters. In the case of Rise of the Planets of the Ape, name recognition can mean reminding audiences of the awful, awful, awful, awful, awful, awful Tim Burton version, which for many people would have been their freshest memory of the franchise prior to Rise. So I'm guessing name recognition is probably a safe horse to bet on if the name involved doesn't have any excess baggage to contend with, or if the film is good enough to overcome that, the key example of that phenomenon being Batman Begins. Though that latter instance is as tough to anticipate as the success of a film just because it has "Insert name of actor" above the title.

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