Stories from the set

When Malcolm is gathering things in his room to go repair the dam, Ellie's left hand appears on Malcolm's shoulder, then disappears between frames.

Several times, when the characters enter the subway (into the BART tunnel under San Francisco Bay), they jump over classic turnstiles. In reality, the stations of this tunnel have more modern-looking turnstiles.

In the film, humans and apes mostly shoot M16 rifles, which have a magazine capacity of 30 rounds. But all the characters, without changing magazines, fire far more shots than that.

Judy Greer's husband is a big fan of the film "Planet of the Apes" (1968). In an interview, Greer said that at their wedding even the bride and groom figurines on top of the wedding cake were made in the shape of chimpanzees, and at the bar, when it was time for cocktails, the original film and "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (2011) were shown on two televisions.

In addition to the apes, the visual effects company Weta Digital also created other animals: a herd of deer, a grizzly bear, and computer doubles of live horses. The deer were created using keyframe animation and special crowd-simulation software, "MASSIVE"; the bear was also created using keyframe animation. Motion capture technology was also used in creating the horses.

Gary Oldman was considered for the role of General Thade in the film «Planet of the Apes» (2001). In this film, he played the role of Dreyfus.

The name of Judy Greer's character, Cornelia, is a reference to the chimpanzee named Cornelius from the film «Planet of the Apes» (1968), played by Roddy McDowall.

Andy Serkis, Terry Notary, and Karin Konoval are the only actors who reprised their roles from the film «Rise of the Planet of the Apes» (2011).

The book that Alexander (Kodi Smit-McPhee) gives to Maurice is «Black Hole» by Charles Burns. It is a story about a sexually transmitted disease among American teenagers that caused physical mutations, and as a result, the teenagers became outcasts and lived in the forest. The plot of the book is in many ways similar to the plot of the story of «Planet of the Apes».

This is the first Planet of the Apes film shot and released in 3D.