Battle For The Planet of The Apes - Screenplay

Screenplay

Initially writer Paul Dehn who had provided the script for every sequel was hired to provide a story treatment for the fifth film in the series. Dehn withdrew from the project prior to completing the screenplay due to health reasons. Screenwriters John William Corrington and Joyce Hooper Corrington were brought in after the success of their film The Omega Man, although prior to that neither one of them had written any science fiction films and, indeed, Joyce Carrington later admitted they had never seen any of the Apes films prior to being hired to write the script for "Battle". Dehn was unavailable for the initial rewrites but was hired to come in and do a final polish on the script making minor changes to the script that the Corringtons had written. Dehn was given a story credit despite an appeal to the Writer's Guild of America for shared credit on the screenplay. Dehn claimed to have rewritten 90% of the dialogue and he altered the ending. The original script by the Corringtons ended on a playground with ape and human children fighting. Dehn chose to go with a close up of a statue of Caesar with a tear falling from its eye which Joyce Corrington characterized as "...stupid. It turned our stomachs when we saw it." The Writer's Guild of America ruled in favor of the Corringtons for sole screenplay credit.