Planet of the Apes getting virtual reality experience

LOS ANGELES — The Planet of the Apes franchise is getting its own virtual reality experience: 20th Century Fox’s Innovation Lab is making an experience that will let players cross the species line, and band together with other apes in their fight against humans.

Fox Innovation Lab showed a first short of the title at a press event at CES in Las Vegas on Wednesday (Jan 4) night. In that preview, which only consisted of a part of one scene of the entire experience, users faced another ape, which included a lot of chest bumping.

The demo was set up on an Oculus Rift headset; Fox didn’t reveal much further about the title, but it is expected to become available on other high-end virtual reality headsets as well. And it’s definitely going to be a lot longer than this first demo — Fox Innovation Lab execs have repeatedly said that they’re looking at VR as a commercial opportunity and a way to expand storytelling, and not just a promotional vehicle.

The Planet of the Apes VR experience won’t be based on the story of the upcoming War of the Planet of the Apes, which is scheduled to be released in July, but it would make sense for Fox to release the title around the same time as well to piggyback on the promotion of the movie.

The experience is being produced with Imaginati Studios, which was co-founded by Rise of the Planet of the Apes actor Andy Serkin.

Earlier this week, the Fox Innovation Lab announced that it will release a virtual reality experience for the studio’s upcoming Alien: Covenant movie this year. At the press event in Las Vegas Wednesday, the Lab also showed off a proof-of-concept augmented reality (AR) experiment based on the movie that was running on ODG’s AR glasses. ODG raised a US$58 million (S$83.3 million) round of funding led by 21st Century Fox in December. VARIETY.COM/REUTERS