(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)-- On Wednesday, July 25th, Planet of the Apes leading man Mark Wahlberg will join Hasbro and Twentieth Century Fox Licensing and Merchandising to launch Hasbro's action figure line, based on Tim Burton's highly-anticipated Planet of the Apes at FAO Schwarz in New York City. 

Wahlberg will greet fans and autograph Hasbro's new, precisely-detailed action figures at FAO Schwarz(1). The first 100 fans will also get a chance to purchase Hasbro's Ape Commander figure, which won't be available in stores until October. 

Hasbro's line features figures based on the film's major heroes and villains, including characters played by Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Clarke Duncan and supermodel Estella Warren. The line, now available nationwide, is sure to thrill kids and collectors alike. 

WHAT:  Mark Wahlberg launches Hasbro's Planet of the Apes action figures

WHERE: FAO Schwarz -58th St. & Fifth Ave., NYC
       Planet of the Apes Boutique, Second Floor

WHO:   Mark Wahlberg and executives from Hasbro, FOX and FAO Schwarz

WHEN:  Wednesday, July 25th, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

                       GREAT PHOTO OPPORTUNITY!!
                        INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE!!
(1) With purchase
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Contact: 
     Bratskeir & Company
     Jill Smithgall / Wendy Joong, 212/679-2233
      or
     Hasbro, Inc.
     Audrey DeSimone, 401/727-5857
      or
     Fox Consumer Products
     Shari Rosenblum, 310/369-8250
      or
     FAO Schwarz
     Bob Friedland, 212/644-9410 x 4084

EVEN THE DEVILISH Tim Burton couldn't have come up with a more amusingly incongruous anthropomorphic image for his upcoming "Planet of the Apes” than British actress Helena Bonham Carter, in full monkey face, a cigarette dangling from her lips as she picks at her nose. 

She's sitting on a stoop outside a downtown Los Angeles soundstage indulging her nicotine habit and delicately trying to scratch her real nose through the left nostril of her simian prosthesis without creasing or tearing the many folds of rubber, glue and hair that obscure her naturally porcelain skin. 

The dark-haired beauty, famous for her many roles in British costume dramas such as "A Room With a View” and "Howard's End,” has spent so much screen time in ornate, constricting costumes that she once swore she would never tackle another role that required wearing a corset. Now she finds herself trapped behind an ape mask that requires 4½ hours to apply every morning (she's in the makeup chair at 2 a.m.) and almost two hours to remove. With her shooting schedule drawing to a close, Bonham Carter confesses that impatience sometimes gets the best of her at day's end and "I tend to tear off my face.” Master makeup artist Rick Baker's prosthetic design is so lifelike that Bonham Carter ably conveys a pang of guilt through its many layers. 

"I must be a bit of a masochist,” she says, trying to laugh. If so, she is not alone. The on-again, off-again "Planet” remake, which opens nationwide Friday, is one of the most anticipated films of the summer. It has a great deal to live up to, including the 1968 original, starring Charlton Heston, and its four sequels, as well as what-might-have-been ruminations if the new movie had been directed by James Cameron, Chris Columbus or Oliver Stone, who at various points over the past several years had signed on. After almost a decade of false starts, "Planet of the Apes” finally came together last fall and is being released less than three months after the completion of principal photography. 

"People keep thinking it's coming out next summer,” says Burton, who is holed up in an editing room in New York, where he resides. "It's a ridiculous kind of schedule. It took longer to green-light than to make, but that's the way things happen on movies like this. They're such big monsters that it takes an unnatural act to get them going and keep them moving.” 

Producer Richard Zanuck's involvement in the new movie is one of those "only in Hollywood” stories. Without him there would never have been a "Planet of the Apes” in the first place. In 1967, when he was running 20th Century Fox, Zanuck was approached by former publicist-turned-producer Arthur Jacobs with Rod Serling's screenplay adaptation of Pierre Boulle's novel "Monkey Planet.” The project had been put in turnaround (making the rounds) by Warner Bros., which "got scared of the idea” of a dominant ape culture with enslaved humans. 

Zanuck wasn't too sure about it himself. "When he presented it to me, I didn't take it seriously. I only read it because of Serling [the mastermind behind "Twilight Zone”] and because the writer of the book had also written ‘Bridge on the River Kwai.' Even then I read it with skepticism.” 

But he became intrigued by the idea of an upside-down world. When Charlton Heston agreed to play the lead and other actors such as Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter and Edward G. Robinson took prominent ape roles, Zanuck tentatively moved ahead. "I wasn't going to commit until we'd done makeup tests.” After the tests were satisfactorily completed, Robinson dropped out (replaced by Shakespearean actor Maurice Evans). "He said ‘I'm way too old to be getting into heavy makeup and eating through straws,'” Zanuck explains. Director Franklin Shaffner was signed to direct, despite misgivings that he might not be able to handle a "big” movie. At the time, Shaffner had worked mostly on the small screen. Ironically, after "Planet of the Apes,” Shaffner directed nothing but big movies, including his Oscar-winning "Patton.” 

That was just one of the many pleasant surprises in the history of "Planet of the Apes.” Still not sure of what he had, Zanuck previewed the film for the first time in Phoenix and held his breath. "If we could get by the first scene of talking apes and the audience didn't laugh hysterically, I knew we'd be OK,” he recalls. The moment passed without incident, and by the end of the preview, the audience was applauding wildly and hanging around to discuss the film in the lobby afterward for the better part of an hour. "They had to be asked to leave. I'd never seen anything like it before.” 

"Planet of the Apes” became one of Fox's biggest hits of the decade, grossing $26 million (on a $6 million budget) and spawning four sequels of decreasing quality and appeal, as well as two briefly lived TV series in the mid-1970s. In addition to its trendy anti-nuke message, which played into the late '60s counterculture movement, the film arrived on movie screens about the same time as Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey” and helped fuel a science-fiction craze at the movies, spawning other films such as "The Omega Man” and "Soylent Green.” Zanuck, who left the studio ranks soon thereafter and became an Oscar-winning producer ("Driving Miss Daisy”), had kept tabs on Fox's intention to remake the film. When he learned that Tim Burton was going to direct, he thought about calling Fox studio head Tom Rothman to tell him what a good selection he'd made but got distracted and never did. A few weeks later, Rothman phoned Zanuck and asked if he wanted to produce the film. 

The intention from the start was to make a remake that wasn't a remake, says Burton. "You can't really remake ‘Planet of the Apes,' because the whole vibe and feeling of the original movie was very '60s. You have to look at it from a different perspective and I saw something oddly compelling about the concept of talking apes. When you do primate research you start thinking how weird our perception of apes is, that they're kind of close to us, yet they can rip you to shreds. That's kind of frightening. Even when they smile at you, they don't really mean it [in the way humans do].” You mean they smile the way Hollywood executives do? he is asked. Burton begins to laugh until he comes close to gagging. "You put all that into the mix and sometimes things that don't seem like a good idea become exciting because there's something risky about it.” 

"Tom told me to start with a blank page,” says William Broyles Jr. ("Cast Away,” "Apollo 13”), the film's primary writer. "And I thought it would be very intriguing to create this movie from scratch.” 

Since Boulle's book had been heavily mined for the 1968 original, Broyles kept only the premise. He never read any of the previous remake scripts and only vaguely heard about them (one reportedly dealt with a virus that drives humans underground). The characters and locations (the new version does not take place on Earth, the surprise ending of the first film) are all new. And Broyles presented Fox with an outline based on his research of Roman history. "What I described was a structure and class system on the ape planet, how its economy worked, what their religion was like and how humans fit in as the slave culture. I had a great deal of fun with it.” 

THE SUBTEXT, which Broyles says became less "sub” as the project moved along, was the whole issue of consciousness. "If someone believes that creatures have a soul and spirit that is uniquely theirs, that can hold true across religious and racial lines -- and in this case across species -- and that's what we all have in common.” 

Which is not to say that the new "Planet of the Apes” has become an existential art film. Broyles introduced spectacle to the project -- elaborate and primitive (there is no gunpowder in the ape culture) battle sequences, giving the film an epic sweep. 

The biggest battle over "Planet of the Apes,” however, took place before filming. "Big, bloody budget battles,” Broyles says with a laugh. 

At the ShoWest convention of theater owners in March 2000, then-Fox studio head Bill Mechanic announced that after almost a decade of talking about it, "Planet of the Apes” would finally be released in July 2001. But by the time Mechanic left the studio early last summer, Fox was in a bit of a slump and loath to undertake a project that could potentially spiral out of control. As Burton and Broyles continued refining the script, it became apparent that efficiencies needed to be made. "It would have cost us $200 million if we'd done half of what was in that script,” says Burton. Fox was thinking about spending half that. Before production began, Broyles agreed to leave the project, and the writing team of Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal ("Mighty Joe Young”) was brought in to fine-tune and simplify the script. 

"These movies get made in prep,” says "Apes'” executive producer Ralph Winter ("X-Men”), describing the movie's production schedule as a "logistical nightmare” involving constant changes and compromises to cohere to the parameters of the film's budget -- a 24-hour schedule beginning at 2 in the morning for the 80 days of principal photography, as well as a separate crew for second-unit work. Along the way sets have been built, scrapped and modified as the script and budget changed. 

For those who are curious about some of the ways $100 million can be spent on a single motion picture, Winter cites the preparations for the battle sequence filmed at Lake Powell in Arizona. The dozens of horses that appeared in the sequence had to be cared for and fed for a month before the scene was shot. By midwinter, the water level of the lake was dangerously low. So a million gallons were pumped in, and the sections where the filming took place had to be heated for the animals and the actors, says Winter. 

The film's main set, Ape City, was constructed on a rented soundstage at Sony Pictures in Culver City, Calif., since all the Fox stages were occupied. Construction began last July and took four months. The set resembles a giant pop-up jungle storybook with every alcove holding another, more compact location. "The great challenge with Ape City,” says production designer Rick Heinrichs (a veteran Burton collaborator), "was not only that it serve the action, but that it say something about the apes, their dual nature. Aspects of their culture and civilization had to be intertwined with their natural animal habitat.” 

Creative differences also saw the departure of Stan Winston, the film's makeup artist, who was replaced by Rick Baker, who considered using animatronic apes but was more excited by the challenge of "actor-driven” gorillas, chimps and orangutans, with movable faces (unlike the stolid masks in the original movie). "I just couldn't pass this one up,” says Baker, who'd just come off the grueling shoot of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” 

THERE WERE three types of simian makeup for "Planet.” The lead characters 

(Bonham Carter, Tim Roth, Paul Giamatti, Michael Clarke Duncan) had to be completely lifelike, requiring the longest daily application. Secondary characters wore flexible rubber masks that took less than an hour to put in place. The ape extras -- mostly soldiers -- wear what Baker refers to as Halloween masks. 

Molds were taken of all the principals, and replacement parts for each day of their shooting schedule had to be baked one at a time. Because large ape dentures altered the alignment of their mouths, the actors learned to eat while looking into a mirror so as not to ruin their makeup. 

Using a burnished red as a predominant color, costume designer Colleen Atwood ("Legend of Sleepy Hollow”) mixed asymmetrical Asian design (Bonham Carter describes her outfit as "a bit Kenzo, a bit Issey Miyake)” with everything from Incan to ancient Turkish influences. "The beauty of creating your own culture is that you can draw from all kind of primitive influences,” Atwood says. She coordinated with Baker by adding hair and skin to the footwear (mostly sandals) and around the neck area and scaling the costumes up to complement the oversized simian heads. 

The humans are more monochromatically dressed, especially Mark Wahlberg, who made it clear he would not be stepping into Heston's loincloth or displaying his wares in the buff as the hero does in the original. Having already done the show-and-tell thing for Calvin Klein on giant billboards around the nation, Wahlberg has moved on. "I prefer to be clothed,” he says. "I've been on the other side and I can sympathize with women in movies” who are asked to wear skimpy outfits. 

The only thing Wahlberg sheds in "Planet of the Apes” is his blue-collar screen persona, taking his first step toward playing a more sophisticated leading man. As Captain Leo Davidson, the astronaut who lands on the ape-run planet, he is sleekly and simply clad throughout the film. "I'm basically there just to get my -- -- -- kicked by guys in gorilla suits,” he says. "I did a lot of my own stunts, but only the ones Tim wanted me to do. I'm still having dreams about gorillas -- that I'm in prison with a bunch of apes.” 

Last August, all the actors playing simians enrolled in ape school under the tutelage of Terry Notary, a former UCLA gymnast-turned Cirque du Soleil performer. "Tim wanted the apes to be realistic, about 20 percent ape, 80 percent human, since they were fairly developed,” says Notary. Most of the six weeks of training was in ape movement -- shoulders down, knees bowed, arms swinging like independent appendages. "The walk took a long time,” says Notary. "Once they got it, we started to develop how they would sit, eat, pick up something, throw a sword. Every little thing had to be learned. Nothing was normal. And there was a lot of maintenance.” 

Some of the actors, such as Roth and Giamatti (who plays an orangutan), took to it very quickly. Notary, who's Roth's stunt double, says, "Tim did so well that, after a while, he was correcting me.” Bonham Carter, however, had to take remedial courses. "I failed ape school,” she laments. But, Notary points out, she made up for it by remaining in character even while offstage and hanging out with some of the real live chimps who appear in the film, "so lovable and affectionate one moment, and if you don't do what they want, they practically rip your arms out of their sockets,” Bonham Carter says with a polite smile. 

The method to all this madness is Burton. "When you have a guy like Tim Burton, people come,” says Wahlberg. "Everything he did was spot on.” 

On the set, Burton is a dervish, climbing into nooks with his viewfinder (he rarely storyboards anymore, he says, preferring not to limit his options) to assess new angles, different shots, completely absorbed and utterly unflappable. He is the calm in the center of this storm, completely focused, never wasting a moment, never losing his inimitable sense of humor. 

Burton says he is being careful to spackle the humor onto the film and not lay it on with a trowel. "Each project has its own nature. You don't want to interject too much humor into a story about talking apes, because it can quickly turn into The Chimp Channel. It's a tricky balance. It remains to be seen how much humor there will be [in the final cut]. It's definitely not going to be campy.” 

Specifics of the plot are a closely held secret, as is the surprise ending, which hardly anyone knows since those script pages were given only to the few people who participate in the final scenes. The only hint comes from Zanuck, who promises it will be as big a doozy as the original and explain why apes on a foreign planet speak English. 

Richard Natale is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer

Los Angeles -- There's probably no one else on screen today who can stare the way Mark Wahlberg stares. His eyes are hooded, and his smoky-green irises alternately mischievous and watchful. He's not angry or insolent, but apparently feels no need to fill up dead air -- or uncomfortable silence -- with noise or motion or polite chitchat. 

The 30-year-old actor is leaning back in a booth at the Palm, the West Hollywood steak joint, having just finished lunch at 5 p.m. At 5 feet 7 inches, he's technically pocket-size, but his well-defined muscles seem to strain against the shimmery light blue fabric of a freshly pressed button-down shirt. Around his neck to his chest snakes a tattoo of a rosary, which has almost always been airbrushed out of his photos and films. He put it there almost seven years ago in the lull between his old career as a rapper-model and his new life as an actor, because "I kept losing my rosary beads.” They're like a promise -- a promise to be good that he needed to etch into his skin. 

In person, Wahlberg manages to be both recessive and magnetic at once. "He doesn't give out a huge amount. It makes you go to him,” says actress Thandie Newton, his latest co-star in the upcoming "The Truth About Charlie.” His voice is low and sandpapery, the kind you have to strain to hear. Every trace of the broad Boston tones of his youth has been carefully polished, except for the flattened Os of the word "good.” Even his famous physique -- now about 186 pounds -- is a product of willpower, and he can make it fluctuate 40 pounds in either direction. 

If his early career -- the Marky Mark rapper through the Calvin Klein underwear model phase -- was about mass-marketing a kind of cartoonish masculinity for middle-class consumption, then this, the second phase, surprisingly hinges on the fact that Wahlberg is one of the few young actors who actually appears to be thinking on screen. Calm on the outside, churning on the inside. 

"I had dinner with Mark a couple of weeks ago in London,” recalls "Planet of the Apes” producer Richard Zanuck. "We talked a lot about Steve McQueen. He loves him. He knows every frame of footage that he ever shot. He idolizes him.” When Zanuck headed 20th Century Fox, he made "The Sand Pebbles” with McQueen in the 1960s. "I told him, ‘You remind me both as a person and as an actor of McQueen.' He's strong, silent, a few-words-says-it-all type of guy.” 

It must have been flattering for Wahlberg. As a kid, when he wasn't devoting himself to troublemaking or girls, he used to watch movies, "but old movies, Cagney movies. I watched a lot of westerns with my dad. Everything with either Steve McQueen or John Garfield, then a lot of '70s movies, but mostly Cagney,” Wahlberg says, uncannily picking out his artistic forefathers. 

"I'm a fan of old movies and old Hollywood,” he says. "The movie business I'm in is not like what it used to be. I'm not excited to be in the movie business like I would be if it were the '50s or the '60s.” 

It's been almost that long since there's been a blue-collar star like Cagney or Garfield. It's probably not accidental that Wahlberg has remade himself from the snarling punker who dedicated his beefcake autobiography literally to his penis, to emergent megastar with the aid of a new generation of writer-directors who have eschewed the tinny fakeness of the Hollywood studio machine. 

Wahlberg seems to emerge from a very specific time, place and economic class rather than the unreal ether of a classless America. His streetwise mixture of aggression, naivete and sadness has provided great fodder for such directing talents as James Gray ("The Yards”), David O. Russell ("Three Kings”) and Paul Thomas Anderson, who notably cast Wahlberg as striving naif Dirk Diggler in his star-making porn epic "Boogie Nights.” 

Wahlberg has only one guiding principle: The director rules. "My loyalty lies to the filmmaker, only the filmmaker,” he says. "Not the producer, not the studio. The filmmaker. That's who I am there with. That's who I'm going to live with and die with, and I'd go anywhere for. If I commit, I commit. Any filmmaker I've ever worked with will tell you that. 

"A lot of people think I've had an interesting career because of the choices I've made. It's a simple formula. I just want to stick with it.” 

It's at this moment that big Hollywood has come to cash in, casting Wahlberg in more classic leading-man roles such as the human who must save mankind in director Tim Burton's $100-million remake of the 1968 hit "Planet of the Apes,” as well as "The Truth About Charlie,” Jonathan Demme's big-budget remake of the 1963 Cary Grant-Audrey Hepburn romance "Charade.” Newton has the Hepburn role, while Wahlberg put on Grant's shoes and learned to speak fluent- sounding French and to tango. 

"Tim and Jonathan are artists,” Wahlberg says. "I don't think they ever want to make a movie because it's going to make a lot of money. They want to make a movie that's cool and different and original. It doesn't matter the size of the budget.” 

Wahlberg hasn't seen the completed "Planet of the Apes,” which Fox was hard-pressed to get ready in time for its Friday opening. After two sets of additional shoots, Burton just finished the film. 

"I haven't been this excited about seeing a movie. I wasn't as nervous about doing any other movie either,” says the actor, who signed on before there was a completed script. "Everything else I've done has been reality-based and something I could relate to in one way or another. 

"I freaked out the first day when I looked down and there were hairy feet hanging out of these sandals and then a gorilla spoke to me. I had a little talk with Tim . I didn't want to freak him out, so I kind of went and looked at him and made sure it was really him and not a look-alike. I had to remember why I was there in the first place. 

"As long as he believed in me, I didn't have too much trouble believing in myself. I don't want to get too comfortable,” adds Wahlberg as he slumps into a soft, beige chair. He manages to say this in a way that sounds cosmic rather than simply physical. 

***
It's 11 a.m., in the lobby of the Wilshire Boulevard building where Wahlberg is renting Milton Berle's condo. He's decked out in an expensive black suit, which hangs baggily when he stands but bunches up uncomfortably around his biceps when he sits. A stylist with long blond hair keeps rearranging the pants folds around his crotch -- a level of attentiveness that amuses Wahlberg, who grins. When the camera starts clicking, he tosses off effortless smiles and bedroom eyes and a kind of deliciously illicit exhaustion. When the photographer is finished, Wahlberg still seems tired, but not that kind of happy tired. More drained and soul-exhausted. Outside, a black limo awaits. In an hour, his flight leaves for New York, where he has business he doesn't want to discuss, and after that, he gets a six-week vacation. "I'll probably be bored to tears,” he says. "I've never had that much time to myself.” 

Although his belongings are strewn in apartments he shares with friends in L.A. and New York, he claims as his official residence a room in his mother's home in Braintree, Mass. He made his first million dollars almost a decade ago, but he's finally going to settle down and buy a house in Los Angeles. He has one picked out and plans to bring both his parents here to live with him. The only hiccup in this optimistic scenario is the fact that Wahlberg's parents haven't been married for 20 years. 

"My mom is definitely coming. I have to talk my dad into the idea,” he says, without acknowledging the peculiarity of the situation. "I have to get a big-enough house. They get along. ... My dad can live in with me. Then I'll have the guest house for my mom.” 

HIS PARENTS' separation was perhaps the most wrenching cataclysm of his young life. Not that the rest was particularly easy. His father drove a truck and then a bus; his mother worked as a nurse's aide. Wahlberg is the youngest of nine children who lived in a two-bedroom apartment in one of the most racially mixed neighborhoods in Boston, a veritable cauldron of racial animosity. During the rage-filled Boston busing crisis of the 1970s, he was one of the kids who was bused an hour and a half away to a predominantly black school in the Roxbury area, until he dropped out in ninth grade. 

Asked for a happy memory, he smirks. "My memories of a boy. Being 12 or something, driving to Maine with my mom. This is when my mom had remarried a guy from Maine, my stepdad.” He stops, then admits he's kidding. "It wasn't a really fun time. I wanted to be at home with my friends in the neighborhood.” 

Even as a kid, he ran with grown men. His brothers first got him high on beer when he was 10, and by his early teens he had a serious cocaine problem. This was accompanied by wildness, stealing, selling drugs and getting into fights. 

Today, Wahlberg doesn't want to go into specifics but simply sums up the time under the rubric of misplaced desire: "It was about getting what I felt I needed and wanted. Not having money. Wearing what my brother wore the year before. If you want to go out there and get it, you could. I wasn't scared of much. If you don't have anything, you don't feel like you have much to lose.” 

It culminated in a PCP-induced rampage in which Wahlberg and friends robbed a pharmacy, then tried to take a case of beer from a Vietnamese refugee. Sixteen-year-old Wahlberg swung a metal pole and took out the man's eye. He received a two-year sentence and spent 45 days in the Deer Island Prison in Boston Harbor. 

Afterward, he moved in with his brother Donnie, who'd struck it big as a member of the teenybopper group New Kids on the Block. Donnie Wahlberg wrote and produced (with his own money) the debut album for his brother's new rap group, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Mark Wahlberg was in the first wave of white kids venturing into rap, and the record went platinum. He became known for dropping his pants during concerts, which caught the attention of Calvin Klein, who put Wahlberg in his famous underwear ads, splaying his alternately grinning and snarling (and crotch-grabbing) image across bus stops and billboards in every American urban center. 

The experience seems to have left a sour taste for Wahlberg, who says, "I try not to think about it. I try to avoid seeing it. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be.”

Music, however, stills hold a flicker of appeal, mostly because it's more "personal” than acting. 

"I liked the freedom of being a musician, but I need the discipline of being an actor in my life. If I stayed in the music business, in that world, and managed to remain at the level that I was, I'd do nothing but get in trouble,” he says. "Show up when you want. Don't show up if you don't want. You can just do what you want. That's fun for a little while. But I need discipline in my life. Organization is good.” 

Wahlberg is perfectly aware that the description of "con man” has been attached to his name, and it seems to give him a kind of jaunty pleasure, as if street survival skills -- particularly important if you're the youngest and smallest -- have proved useful. 

He has had no formal training in acting. 

"When people ask me if I studied, I say I spent 20 weeks at the Penny Marshall school of acting,” he says with a laugh, acknowledging the director's idiosyncratic, performance-driven style. 

Marshall recalls seeing the crowd's ecstatic reaction to Wahlberg at a Calvin Klein event at the Hollywood Bowl. "I said, ‘Who's he?'” recalls Marshall, who called Wahlberg in to audition for "Renaissance Man.” The 1994 movie, starring Danny DeVito, was about a former ad man who winds up teaching basic English to Army recruits. Wahlberg "talked like a regular person when he was reading,” says Marshall. "I just asked him, ‘Do you want to be Marky Mark or Mark Wahlberg? Mark Wahlberg, fine.' 

"She talked me into wanting the part. I just wanted to meet them. I was a big fan of Penny and Danny,” Wahlberg says. "I had met a lot of people who'd wanted me to play the white rapper in this movie, the bully in that movie, the skateboard guy. I wasn't interested. They were just so much different in their approach and their personality.” 

Other roles followed: as Leonardo DiCaprio's thuggish best friend in the arty "The Basketball Diaries,” the 1995 film that infamously showed teenagers in trench coats shooting up a high school; as a hardscrabble kid with a psychopathic streak in "Fear” (1996). 

"What I did find quite surprising for [a star of that magnitude], he had absolutely no ego,” says "Planet of the Apes” co-star Estella Warren. "He has a great sense of humility.” 

The only chip on his shoulder relates to the stint as a model: He doesn't want to appear as beefcake. Indeed, his only note to Tim Burton during the making of "Planet of the Apes” was that he didn't want to wear a loincloth. 

***
Wahlberg recalls the last two times he cried. One was when he broke up with his girlfriend. He split recently with actress Jordana Brewster, in a transatlantic phone call from the Parisian set of "The Truth About Charlie” to America, where she's a student at Yale. The other was when he heard that a friend of his had been killed in a car accident. 

"For the past eight or nine months, I had been working every day. Every day I'd go to work and think, ‘This is who I have to feel today.' I was always in control of my feelings and dictating how I felt the entire time. When I got the news that he passed away, I lost it. I didn't want to make movies anymore. I didn't want to act. I wanted to leave Paris and just wanted to go home.” 

He's even begun to go to church. 

"I believe in God,” he says. "It's important to go and pray. Important for me.” 

He'd also like to have kids. "I was home with my nieces and nephews. What I wouldn't do to have a couple of those,” he says wistfully. ... I want to have nine or 10 of my own.” 

Who knows if any of this is real, but the delivery is effective, and winning. The only certainty in his future is a plan to make more movies. Wahlberg's lined up one apiece with Russell, Anderson and Gray. The scripts aren't ready, and Russell, scheduled to go first, is still weighing two options. 

"I'm game for either,” Wahlberg says. "They know me. They know what I'm capable of and what I'm willing to do for them as an actor.” 

Anything? 

He finally smiles. 

"As long as I don't have to hurt anybody.” 

The big-budgeted and much-anticipated sci-fi remake starring Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter and Michael Clarke Duncan is slated to hit theatres July 27, with initial projections estimating 20th Century Fox could rake in $50 million-plus on its first weekend. Too bad it's not done yet. 

The film, which was supposed to be readied for press and exhibitor screenings Tuesday, has yet to be completed. Filmmakers are still monkeying around with the flick, digitally inserting special effects shots and editing the film. 

One source tells E! Online that filming was still going on just a few weeks ago, with Burton and company reshooting scenes involving chimp stuntmen and flaming rockets. 

And, according to Inside.com, Fox's brass have yet to view a complete cut. 

The last-minute tweaking has pushed the first press screening to Friday--just one week before the film is due in theaters. 

"We've never done a film on this tight a schedule," 20th Century Fox vice chairman Bob Harper tells Inside.com. Harper says the film is nearly four days behind post-production schedule. In defense of filmmakers, however, Harper says Planet of the Apes wasn't originally supposed to wrap until late July for a fall debut, but Fox decided to move up the film's release for the summer season. 

Apparently, the delay has also wrecked the film's publicity plans. Fox TV was supposed to air a special on Planet of the Apes, but it has been backburnered thanks to the 11th hour work on the film. The special, which was supposed to have combined footage from the new Apes and the 1968 original , the special would be difficult (though not impossible) to still air. 

Fox execs aren't the only ones sweating the looming deadline. Reebok has a $100 million dollar "Defy convention" ad campaign tied to the film. A poster, featuring an ape commander with a menacing sword and wearing a pair of Reebok Classics, features the tagline, "Evolved classic." Other big merchandising deals, from toys to T-shirts, are also dependent on the film's timely release. 

Could the down-to-the-wire scrambling make Fox look like a monkey's uncle? Not necessarily. Last season's Fox hit, X-Men, also was finished just days before its release. 

CENTURY CITY, Calif., July 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Twentieth Century Fox's ``Apes'' are coming in more ways than one! Reebok and Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising (Fox L&M) announced today a major ``Planet of the Apes'' promotional partnership, an ``Apes''-inspired ad featuring the film's feared Ape Commander as Evolved Classic, wearing a select pair of Reebok's innovative athletic fashion shoes. Offering a unique glimpse into Tim Burton's ``Planet of the Apes,'' slated to hit in theatres July 27, the co-branded print (August 2001) and outdoor (August - September) campaign is the newest addition to Reebok's popular print advertising campaign that communicates what it means to be a true ``classic,'' resonating with the timelessness of Reebok Classic shoes and Fox's ``Apes'' franchise. (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20010711/LAW053 ) 

Says Ann Marie Williams, director of entertainment marketing for Reebok, ``Reebok is thrilled with the advertising promotion with 'Apes.' Both brands are cherished classics that are now being portrayed with modern twists. The ad is a poignant reminder of the nostalgia of 'Apes' and its power as a classic part of our culture.'' 

``The union of Reebok and 'Planet of the Apes' is the perfect marriage of two classic brands,'' said Rita Prosyak, Director, Feature Film Promotions, 20th Century Fox Theatrical Marketing. ``Both are a mainstay in the annals of pop culture and have remained hip and timeless since their original introductions.'' 

Ads headlined Evolved Classic feature a black and white portrait showing Ape Commander as a classic warrior revisiting the world in the guise of his new ``Apes'' role. The ad captures the meaning of the Reebok Classic campaign and tempts filmgoers to anticipate the intrigue, explosive action and excitement they can expect to see this summer in ``Apes.'' 

The national print campaign will appear in August and September issues of leading style publications including Source, InStyle, Esquire, Seventeen, Marie Claire, Vanity Fair, Teen People, Interview (August), and GQ, Spin, Details, Vibe, Paper, Black Book (September). The national Evolved Classic outdoor campaign breaks July 1st and will run through October 2001 in Los Angeles (Main St. at Rose in Santa Monica; Wilshire Boulevard at Saltaire in Santa Monica; Sawtelle at Nebraska in West Los Angeles; Pico at Exposition in Downtown Los Angeles; and at Beverly Center). 

About Reebok Classic 
Reebok Classic, one of the best selling footwear lines in the world, is celebrated as the innovator of athletically inspired casual footwear. Earlier this year, Reebok Classic launched its fourth footwear collection called Legacy with a feature of the Classic Canon, a simply designed shoe with subtle urban styling. Other collections include: the Premier Collection, a luxury line featuring Reebok's proprietary DMX cushioning technology; the Heritage Collection, featuring traditional styles updated with new materials and treatments; and the Fashion Athletics Collection, fashion-forward footwear featuring retro styles in trendy colors and various materials. Each collection delivers Classic's legendary soft leather, incredible comfort, and clean, simple design with contemporary styling. 

About PLANET OF THE APES 
Director Tim Burton's (``Batman'') ``Planet of the Apes'' begins with the premise of Pierre Boulle's classic science fiction novel: A pilot crash lands on a strange planet and finds himself in a brutal, primal place where apes are in charge and humans scavenge for subsistence, hunted and enslaved by the tyrannical primates. However, Burton's unique personal vision and style break new ground in story, design, makeup and visual effects. ``Planet of the Apes'' hits theatres nationwide on July 27, 2001. 

Reebok International Ltd., headquartered in Canton, MA, is a leading worldwide designer, marketer and distributor of sports, fitness and casual footwear, apparel and equipment. Operating units include the Reebok Division, The Rockport Company, Greg Norman and Ralph Lauren Footwear. Sales for 2000 totaled approximately $2.9 billion. Reebok can be accessed on the worldwide web at http://www.reebok.com. 

Twentieth Century Fox Licensing and Merchandising, along with Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, comprise the retail-oriented strategic alliance of Fox Consumer Products. A recognized industry leader, Twentieth Century Fox Licensing and Merchandising licenses and markets properties worldwide on behalf of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Twentieth Television and Fox Broadcasting Company, as well as third party lines. 
For further information, please contact Shari Rosenblum of Fox Consumer Products, 310-369-8250; or Deborah Brancroft or Shawna Lynch, both of Bender/Helper Impact, 310-473-4147, for Fox Consumer Products; or Andrea Goodman of Reebok, 781-401-7790. 

July 7, 2001 -- If you want to know what the celebs and poshies get up to on the weekends - and admit it, you do - the Snob Nobber is here to tell you. 

The VIP scene has moved to Hamptons, so go east, young man. 

Tonight, the A-List will be at the United Artists theater in Southampton at a special advanced screening of the Reese Witherspoon vehicle "Legally Blonde," sponsored by MGM, diamond floggers Harry Winston and Hamptons magazine - the official bible of the more-money-than-sense set - followed by a party at the Capri Hotel's Cabana. 

Witherspoon, her husband, Ryan Phillippe, Mark Wahlberg and Selma Blair are all expected. After that, Wahlberg, actress Tara Reid, and model and Playboy pinup Kylie Bax are billed to grace the party at Stuff Magazine's Hamptons House in Southampton for Stuff's covergirl Willa Ford. 

The exclusive invite doesn't give the address, but here it is anyway (2210 Noyac Rd.). 

The "Hamptons House" is a brilliant ploy by a team of party promoters who got Stuff to sponsor their house in the hopes that the magazine would gets lots of ink. 

Afterwards, everyone'll be stuffing themselves into the Conscience Point nightclub. Bacardi rum is handing out free samples of its new "Jungle Juice" drink. (Bring a bucket.)

The Conscience Point crowd - the club's name is a misnomer, since everyone checks their conscience at the door - can be pretty gritty. 

But everything's likely to be top drawer at the Bay Street Theater's Summer Gala Benefit on the Long Wharf in civilized Sag Harbor, also happening Saturday night. 

Tickets run $300 and $500, if you can get them, which gives you drinks, dinner, dancing and the chance to rub elbows with the likes of Lauren Bacall, Alec Baldwin, Roy Scheider and Kim Cattrall. People will actually be wearing neckties, and most of the girl's went to good schools, where they did bad things. The Snob Nobber approves. 

Band distances itself from film that started out as a Tim 'Ripper' Owens biopic. 

The New York Times' headline read, "Metal-Head becomes Metal-God." The August 1997 story by Andrew C. Revkin was about Tim "Ripper" Owens, a devout Judas Priest follower from Ohio who played in a Priest cover band. When original Priest vocalist Rob Halford quit the band in 1992, two fans sent the group a grainy videotape of Owens, whose singing voice bears an uncanny resemblance to Halford's. After viewing the tape, the band auditioned, and subsequently hired, the young American to be its new vocalist. 

The day after the story ran, Revkin was contacted by "Clueless" producer Robert Lawrence. "He called me at the Times and said, 'This has got to be a movie,'" Revkin said. 

Nearly four years later, Judas Priest are about to release their 15th album, Demolition (their second with Owens), and Warner Bros. Pictures and Bel Air Entertainment are preparing for the September 14 release of the film "Rock Star," which tells Owens' incredible story ... or does it?

In October 1999, the studio happily reported that the movie — which was originally to be called "Metal God" after the Judas Priest song "Metal Gods" — was based on the life of Owens, but now the company is backpedaling. Early this week a Warner Bros. spokesperson said it had nothing to do with Judas Priest or Tim Owens. Since then, the spokesperson has relented a tad and conceded that it was inspired by Revkin's New York Times article.

Initially, Judas Priest were interested in the project, and Warner Bros. wanted the band to write music for the soundtrack. However, the group wanted creative input on the film, and that soured the deal, said Revkin, who was hired as a creative consultant for the movie.

"They wanted to see screenplays and stuff," he said. "If you were Warner Bros. and you were gonna throw $30 million into making a movie, would you want a bunch of middle-aged former heavy metal stars to have creative control? No."

When Judas Priest discovered the movie script didn't follow Owens' actual story, they completely distanced themselves from the picture, and insisted that Warner Bros. make no reference to them in the film. Now the studio is being extremely cautious about even mentioning the name Judas Priest, lest the band take legal action. 

"This is the thing that's sort of not very good for us," sighed Priest guitarist Glenn Tipton, during a phone interview while the band was on tour in Europe. "Everybody still thinks it's the story of Ripper, but it isn't."

Maybe not, but there are striking similarities. In the movie, Mark Wahlberg plays the singer of the cover band Steel Dragon, and he gets hired by the outfit he idolizes after two fans send that group a video of him performing. Like Judas Priest, the group's departing singer is gay. 

"Yeah, but Rob [Halford] quit Judas Priest nearly a year before he was replaced," argued Bob Chiappardi, president of Concrete Marketing, whose company was hired to help plug the movie. "Here, the singer gets thrown out in the middle of a tour, and two weeks later his replacement is playing in front of huge stadiums. And obviously, Ripper didn't run off and become Pearl Jam."

Chiappardi added that "Rock Star" takes place in the 1980s, and the hedonistic revelry Steel Dragon partake in is strictly fictional, as is the love story between Wahlberg and co-star Jennifer Aniston. "Ninety percent of the movie is based on pure rock star mythology," he said.

This year, Judas Priest are reissuing their entire Columbia Records back catalog and releasing an album on their new label, Atlantic. At one point they might have hoped "Rock Star" would offer them some useful publicity. Now they fear it will provide exactly the opposite. 

"They fabricated things and decided to pull away from my story and make their own because I guess mine was too normal," said Owens. "There's no telling what they put in there. If I could sue, I would."

"When the final thing comes out," concluded Tipton, "if people have misconstrued it with our story, then we will have to take some legal action." 

— Jon Wiederhorn