You’ll recall that 20th Century Fox had its first press screenings of Rise of the Planet of the Apes very late in the game, only days before it opened on 8.5. When some suggested that the film might have built up more opening-weekend steam if early positive reactions had circulated earlier, Fox reps said that a demanding post-production schedule kept them from showing it any sooner.

“I know for a fact it was about effects delivery,” a rep told me. “It was down to the wire as this was originally going to be a Thanksgiving release.”

Now it turns out the real reason for Rise of the Planet of the Apes not being ready to show until early August was because of a re-shoot of the film’s finale that happened over the July 4th weekend.

Badass Digest‘s Devin Faraci, drawing from a Hollywood Reporter story, has written that “the original ending had James Franco’s character dying. At the hands of humans, no less. Shot to death by armed humans who have chased the apes into the forest. [And then] the ape horde descends on the people and tears them to pieces, a reversal of the opening scene where Bright Eyes is captured in the jungle.

“This isn’t the only change from an early version of the script,” he writes. “Originally Rocket and Caesar had a big brawl at the end as well. In fact lots of things changed lots of times over the course of the script’s development.

In any event, “Everybody hurried back to set this summer, just a month before release, to reshoot the ending.”

During last weekend’s Visual Effects Society Production Summit in Beverly Hills, Fox’s president of postproduction Ted Gagliano said Franco was brought in for the re-shoot over the July 4th holiday weekend. “We shot for three hours and (Franco) was back on the plane,” Gagliano recalled. He added that this change led to a challenging final weeks of what was originally a 41-week post schedule that involved extensive visual effects work.”

The original discarded ending will apparently be included on the Bluray.

Lars Von Trier‘s Melancholia plays tonight at the New York Film Festival. (I couldn’t get there in time but I’ll attend the after-event.) I’m fairly certain that 90% of the questioners speaking with Kirsten Dunst on the red carpet asked her about Von Trier’s Nazi comment that he made in Cannes. That has always been an oppressively lame thing to dwell on. It’s a shame that it won’t go away.

Less than an hour after Von Trier blurted out those idiotic remarks, I urged readers to forget it. Von Trier “has turned into a very dry and clumsy kidder,” I wrote. “Nothing is even half-sincere — absurdist put-on all the way.”

“Please, please don’t take this guy seriously,” I wrote later on. “Okay, go ahead…what do I care? But he lives to say stuff like this. He’s an artist, a madman…unbalanced. And he loves getting this kind of attention.

“Lars von Trier has, press conference-wise, often played the role of a provocateur, a kidder — he loves to poke and agitate and whip the press into a lather,” I wrote toward the end of the festival. “Nazi-winking, even in jest, in a huge no-no, of course, but we all know that Von Trier is a serious artist and a humanitarian who, despite his impishness, has time and again made films that see through to the sad soul of things.”

I’m glad that John Cameron Mitchell and Melanie Laurent got nice paychecks for doing this newish Hypnotic Poison commercial, but cinematically it’s nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Aren’t all perfumes about trying to “put a spell” on someone? Isn’t it redundant to hear Nina Simone sing these actual words? Isn’t it a bit redundant to use the word “hypnotic” in the first place?

This Star Wars family portrait painting has been commented upon elsewhere, but I wanted to show it to those who haven’t bought the Star Wars Bluray set (which I still haven’t seen, being without a Bluray player or large high-def monitor during my New York visit) and just say for the record that this is the most concise visual expression of the 21st Century mind of George Lucas that I’ve ever seen.

The six-film Star Wars family, as found inside the multi-disc Star Wars Bluray book.

The ruthless, power-mad dark side vs. the serene and illuminated spirituality of the Jedi delivers the key dramatic tension of the Star Wars films. By any common standard these two poles are most memorably represented by Darth Vader and Alec Guinness‘s Obi-Wan Kenobi, or Mark Hamill‘s Luke Skywalker.

But who is the biggest front-and-center presence in this collage? The giver of one of the most agony-inducing high-profile performances in the history of big-budget epic movies — Hayden Christensen.

And where are the truly legendary characters who toplined the original Star Wars and especially The Empire Strikes Back, by far the finest film in the series? Let’s see…oh, there they are, all tucked away in the top right-hand corner, like vaguely unwanted guests at a wedding who’ve been seated at a table next to the kitchen with the waiters running in and out and the door swinging open and closing, over and over and over.

The collage basically says that the prequel guys, including Jake Lloyd and Jar-Jar Binks, are the core of the legend and the franchise, and that everything of lasting or profound value in the series stems from those three movies and their stories. Good Heavenly God!

Why are there two Chewbaccas? I realize that “Chewy” is part of a wookie race but still.

Here’s Press Play’s final chapter of the Roman Polanski series, which began last week. Cut and commented upon by Matt Zoller Seitz along with Kim Morgan.

Seitz update: “Mr. Peel is correct. This video essay is a collaboration between me and Kim, but the text is a slightly rewritten version of a column Kim originally wrote for her blog Sunset Gun. If you watch to the end you will see that the first credit after the final shot is ‘written and narrated by Kim Morgan,’ followed by my editing credit.”

Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone, Boxoffice.com’s Phil Contrino and I recorded Oscar Poker 50 yesterday morning. I have to say that it’s essential for good chatter to talk about films that have moved us, period, and not to always reduce the equation to “is it Oscar-worthy or not?” Let the chuckleheads come to us, and not vice versa. Here’s a non-iTunes, stand-alone link.

“It’s a drag how late-summer, early-fall festivals like Telluride and especially Toronto are now too often seen as warm-ups for the Oscars. Both events solicited that attention, and grew more influential as a result. Yet is that what we want from film festivals? This isn’t as true of Cannes…because it takes place in May and remains a showcase for world cinema and French cultural patrimony. It’s where Brad Pitt can work the red carpet, but also where filmmakers as dissimilar as Terrence Malick and Apichatpong Weerasethakul can be talked about without that chucklehead, Oscar, sucking up all the air in the room.” — N.Y. Times critic Manohla Dargis in a 10.2 chat piece with A.O. Scott about the fall festivals.

Rooney Mara‘s eyebrows are too dark, but I can let that slide.

In a 10.2 N.Y. Times column, Frank Bruni is arguing that it’s “ludicrous” to bring up Gov. Chris Christie‘s weight as an indicator of character issues that might conceivably get in the way of being a fully effective President. Unwise and unfair, says Bruni. “Mettle has better measurements than the number of scoops in your post-dinner sundae or miles in your pre-breakfast run,” he claims.

I’m sorry, but that’s really not true. A person who can’t say no to french fries or ice cream or a bucket of KFC is in the same predicament as a compulsive gambler or alcoholic or a drug abuser. You have to live moderately and sensibly and demonstrate that you can look the worst temptations in the eye and tell them to kiss off. You have to do that in order to demonstrate your suitability as a leader, for which you need “character” all day long and into the night.

That said, Christie is a likable, appealing fellow and not a “crazy” like Perry or Bachmann, and he doesn’t appear to be a grinning shape-shifter like Romney. I don’t dislike him. Half of the electorate would probably vote for Christie because he’s fat, and the other half would vote against him for the same reason.

If someone could please send along a PDF of Charlie Kaufman‘s Frank or Francis, I’d be much obliged. Just for the pleasure of it. Update: I’ve been sent a copy, thanks.

From Awards Daily: “Steve Carell will play Frank, a Kaufman-esque writer/director who’s on the Oscar track at the beginning of the script. His nemesis is Jack Black‘s Francis, an online film blogger/commenter who pretty much hates everything and everyone but especially Frank’s work.

“No one comes out of this thing unscathed. Kaufman shines the cruel light of irony on the whole Oscar dog-and-pony show, and the people who pay attention to them. There’s a great debate between Francis and his mom about a typical Academy best picture winner ‘sweeping’ while a more deserving film goes unrecognized. You, dear readers, will recognize the anger in Francis’ online voice as he lays into the Academy.

“But of course, he looks as ridiculous as they do. Everyone looks ridiculous – everyone is out for recognition, either on a more traditional famous-writer level, or on a modern level vis a vis a blogger receiving some measure of notoriety.

“The script is brilliant, funny, dead-on, sad, depressing but — did I say brilliant? It’s hard to write about this script without feeling like you’re trapped inside it. Kaufman’s best flms do this to you. You feel trapped inside them and sometimes you can’t ever feel free of them. Kaufman has been able to bend the lines between reality and fiction – Adaptation and Being John Malkovich are two films that bend in and out of the art (and actors) we consume and the film’s reality, which is supposed to be our reality. In truth, you never know where you are exactly.”