Cameron Escapes Planet Of Apes

Filmmaker James Cameron has severed ties with the 20th Century Fox franchise remake of The Planet Of The Apes, which he was to have written and produced under his Litghtstorm Entertainment banner. Fox is now pursuing other creatives, among which is Michael Bay, the Armageddon director, to remake the 1968 sci-fi classic. Fox says it is committed to a big-budget Apes project in the range of $100 to $140 million. Stan Winston, insiders say, will stay with the project and provide new technological effects that will create a new level of ape realism never seen before.Cameron has yet to identify is next directorial project. His attention at present is on forming a Lightstorm Entertainment television division and writing a sequel script for Foxís True Lies which he intends to produce but not direct. Cameron also is casting his Dark Angel sci-fi drams series, which will be produced by Fox Studios/Grushow for the Fox Network. The series will premiere following fall 1999 premiers or early 2000. Another project Cameron is scripting is based on the trilogy of Mars novels by Kim Stanley Robinson, the rights to which Lightstorm acquired in 1998. As for Cameronís reported deal with Sony Pictures to make his Spider-Man script, the official word is that Lightstorm is ""not involved with Spider-Man at this time and there are no discussions to that end taking place.""