When I first heard that there was another Planet of the Apes film being made, I rolled my eyes and said, "Really?  Another one?"  But then I found out that Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa, the same married couple that wrote the screenplay for the Sci-Fi thriller, The Relic, wrote the screenplay for Rise of the Planet of The Apes.  Then I said, "Ok, I have to go see this movie because The Relic was boss."

Yesterday, I had the great opportunity to speak with Amanda and Rick and after talking to them, I am even more excited to see the movie. You can tell that they are passionate about their work, which I believe always adds to a film.

Katrina: Now you guys were the ones that originally pitched the idea of Rise of the Planet of The Apes, correct?

Amanda: Yes! It was Rick’s idea and he had been cutting out magazine articles about Chimps being raised in homes and how it's sort of an inappropriate place to raise them and how eventually when the chimps become teenagers they get aggressive and end up being put in these horrible shelters. And he thought there’s a great movie in there like a thriller, some sort of movie in there. And then he realized, like a light bulb went off.  He said, "Oh my God this is a great way to reboot Planet of the Apes." And so we went to FOX and pitched the idea to them. And to our delight and shock, they weren’t already developing a movie to reboot the franchise so they hired us and we wrote it. That’s how it started.

Katrina:  Is that what makes this film different from all the other Planet of the Apes, the animal rights and animal testing?

Rick:  Well that’s a part of it. We didn’t set out to make an animal rights movie, but while we were writing it we knew that if it were to get made that the animal rights and the animal lovers and so forth would really dig the message. That wasn’t our original intent, but in terms of the original series and so forth, we felt all along we had the same theme that the first movie had; meaning that man’s hubris can become his downfall and if man plays God it will come back to haunt him. Because our feeling about the original movie was that it was man’s hubris that got Col. Taylor on that beach at the very end of it. We had the same theme even though it's from a different source.

Amanda:  But our movie starts in present day, so it’s like what would have to happen today, 2011, for the domino stack up system event to happen in such a way that the apes would take over.

Rick:  Yeah, like what could really happen?  So we tried to tell it in a very realistic way.  Like what could really happen with stuff that’s really happening in our world today that if the right things were to connect then the apes could end up taking over?

Katrina:  Itt seems like in every single one of them (The Planet of the Apes films) there’s a big shocker at the end of the movie.  Is it going to be the same for this movie as well?

Rick:  Well we made a very conscious decision not to compete with the Statue of Liberty. That’s probably one of the top if not the top great movie shockers of all time. And so we thought well lets not try to do that, lets not try to beat that. It does end in a way with kind of a twist and explanation at the same time. Early on in the development it was more like the whole movie was kind of building up to that twist, but overtime as the script changed and morphed that became less of an important element. It would be great if we did, but we made a conscious decision not to compete with that.

Katrina:  Do you think that this film will please all the old Planet of the Apes fans and also bring in a lot of new ones?

Amanda:  Oh my gosh! You said that so well that’s exactly what we want.  We showed it to our nephew last night at the premiere and he hasn’t seen any of the other ones.

Rick:  He’s nine.

Amanda:  He loved it. Like as a fan, as a brand new fan.  Now he wants to see the other movies. He knew nothing about the Planet of The Apes and he could 100% enjoyed the movie.  But if you do know Planet of the Apes, there’s definitely a lot of respect paid to the mythology of the original and we wanted this one to fit in.  Also, there are these things we call Easter eggs which are like little presents to the fans in the movie that you can find, like our inside jokes kind of.

Rick:  Yeah, if you really know them you’ll go "oh my God." A lot of them are really obvious…character names and stuff.  And then some of them are really, really obscure that I don't know if anyone is ever actually gonna figure it out, because they’re so obscure.  But last night at the premiere, we had-like I said-our nephew, but also some grown ups came up to us and said, "I have to admit I never saw any of the Planet of the Apes films and now I wanna go back and watch them.  We basically took one bit of the mythology of the Planet of the Apes movies and I’m not gonna tell you what that is.  It’s a matter of incident and explanation and we pulled that out of one of the movies and then crafted the story around that moment.  So if you are a big fan and you know that stuff then you’ll go "Oh my God!  That’s where that came from.

Katrina:  "Now I’m like ten times more excited to see this movie.

Rick:  Good.

Katrina:  I have to ask you guys, because I love it that you guys are a married couple and have the same career, and I think that’s so awesome.  How did you guys meet?

Amanda:  Wow, that’s a good question.  I moved out here when I was a secretary at TriStar Pictures a long time ago and Rick was an agent at William Morris and we just met at a party.

Rick:  I had lived out here already for a while and it was her first night out here and we ended up at the same party and we met at that party.

Katrina:  Oh ,that’s so cute!  The first night she was out there?

Amanda:  Yeah, the first night I moved out here.

Rick:  As soon as I saw her, I moved in as fast as I could.  I knew it was gonna be a very short window of opportunity.  I saw her across the way…and we’ve been together ever since.

Katrina:  That is too cute.  That’s a movie in itself.

Rick:  Yeah, I don’t know.  It might be kind of boring...But thanks.

Katrina:  Amanda, your grandfather (Sidney Buchman) was also a famous screenwriter (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Cleopatra).  Were you inspired by him to get involved in the industry?

Amanda:  I was very inspired, but also very intimidated.  I went to USC film school as a director, thinking that I wanted to be a director.  And then once I got into film school, it had such a strong writing program I thought I’d try it out.  But I was a little scared and a little intimidated by the legacy and by the thought of writing screenplays.  So, I really credit USC with helping me overcome that.

Rick:  But you were close to your grandfather.

Amanda:  I was close to my grandfather.  He was a bit of a cautionary tale too, because when he left Hollywood he had been blacklisted in 1952, so I always wondered would he be happy that I was moving back out here and trying to be a screenwriter or would he warn me about it.  He was no longer alive when I started writing, but he was definitely a great inspiration.  I mean his words...he had a very strong moral compass and all of his movies came from some place of passion.

Rick:  I think the other thing about Sidney, if I can jump in.

Amanda: Yeah.

Rick:  Is that when you talk to some of the older screen writers or some of the elder statesmen of the writers guild, and they know a lot of the writers in the past, when they talk about Sidney Buchman, they talk about how great he is with structure.  And he would be brought into projects to fix them and so forth.  When people ask us, "how do you guys work together?" and we always say we compliment each others strengths and weaknesses.  I’m stronger in one and she’s stronger in the other and stuff.  But what’s fascinating to me is one of Amanda’s great strengths as a writer is also structure.  I don’t know if that’s just a genetic thing passed down or maybe she just paid more attention to it in her studies and so forth, but Sidney was great in structure and I think Amanda is great in structure also.

Katrina:  Yeah, I have to say The Hand that Rocks the Cradle (written by Amanda Silver), I don’t think I’ll ever have a nanny for when I have kids.

(Rick and Amanda laugh)

Katrina:  Rick what was your inspiration for getting into the industry?

Rick:  Well, I moved out here not really sure what I was gonna do with my life.  I tried different things, I went to business school.  Like Amanda said, I was at William Morris.  I started in the mailroom and then was actually representing writers for a while as an agent.  But the truth is that growing up I just loved movies.  I grew up in the country on a farm so I had a lot of time by myself as a kid and would make up stories and stuff.  And just spent a lot of my time with my head either in sports or in movies and I was never going to be big enough to Quarterback for the Cowboys.  So I thought I would try movies.  I don’t know.  I just always knew that I wanted to try to write.  I wrote a lot in college too.  Truth is it was really Amanda who encouraged me at the time when I was an agent to really pursue my passion so that led to me writing my first script.

Katrina:  You guys are too cute.  What advice would you give to other people who are trying to get into the movie business?

Amanda:  My advice though, is really corny, so you have to forgive me.   But I really believe that everybody has a story or many stories to tell.  And to stick to what you’re interested in and…to your passion.  And don’t try to fit in to what you think people want.  That’s my advice.  Write from your heart.

Rick:  I guess I would say just be prepared for a lot of really hard hard work.  Be organized about whatever your plan is.  You know?

Amanda:  And never give up.

Rick:  Plan your work, work your plan.  And never give up.  I think one of the hardest things to learn is to not take "no" as an answer.  It's so easy for people out here to say "no".  Everyone on any level from the head of the studio down to an assistant or someone in the mail room, people are always trying to get them to read their script and help do them a favor and so forth.  And people say "no".  It’s just kind of the way it is, but you just have to keep at it, not give up and keep at it.  It takes a lot of dedication.  Planning and studying, watching movies, depending on what you want to do.  Whether its writing, or directing or acting, or producing or whatever.  Just read as much you can, study as much as you can and work really hard at it.

Katrina:  Cool.  Now I have to ask, are you guys already planning a sequel to Rise of the Planet of The Apes?

Rick:  Well we would love to do a sequel and I think everyone’s hoping that there’s a sequel.  I think at this point there hasn’t been any discussions, because I think everyone’s afraid to jinx it.  So, I think ultimately it will depend on if the public really responds to this new way of telling the story.  And if they do, I’m sure there will be a sequel and we would love it.  We know we’ve got lots of thoughts and ideas, specific ideas about what that would be.  But I think everyone’s kind of holding off talking about it, 'til we see how the movie does.

Katrina:  Is there anything you guys would like to say to anybody out there who’s hesitant to see another Planet of the Apes movie?

Rick:  Yes!  I’m really glad you asked that.  The movie’s not what you think.  It’s a surprise.  It’s a fresh way to approach a great, great legacy and so I would encourage people to check it out.

Amanda:  It’s a great ride.  It’s got lots of action and fun, but it’s also a very tender, emotional story.

Rick:  Very emotional.  In the premiere last night, a lot of people were very moved, but it’s also very, very exciting.