"Rise of the Apes", a completely new take on one of the Studio's most beloved and successful franchises. Oscar-winning visual effects house WETA Digital -- employing certain of the groundbreaking technologies developed for AVATAR -- will render, for the first time ever in the film series, photo-realistic apes rather than costumed actors. "Rise of the Apes" is an origin story in the truest sense of the term. Set in present day San Francisco, the film is a reality-based cautionary tale, a science fiction/science fact blend, where man's own experiments with genetic engineering lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy.