20th Century Fox is starting to ramp up the promotional campaign for Rise of the Planet of the Apes as the movie’s August 5 release date fast approaches. Just recently the studio released a pair of television spots and new domestic and international trailers. If you’ve seen any of the previously released trailers, you won’t find much new in these videos. The international trailer probably contains some extra shots, but I’ve seen it all before. You can watch the new videos and trailers here below.

Still, I love the look of the film so far. The CGI motion-capture on the apes looks amazing to the point where even in their brief appearances you feel a great deal of sympathy for them, especially in the lead performance by Andy Serkis as Caesar. But with the exception of John Lithgow, the human actors don’t fare as well in these trailers. I hope it’s just a case of the promo materials holding back.

The full-length trailer for the latest in the Planet of the Apes saga, a long-in-development prequel entitled Rise of the Planet of the Apes, has debuted and you can watch it below.

The last time 20th Century Fox attempted to reboot their valuable Planet of the Apes franchise the result was Tim Burton’s 2001 “reimagining” that despite being one of that year’s biggest hits was little more than a mediocre summer action picture that was heavily compromised in the rush to meet the release date that had been locked down before the movie even went before the cameras. A decade later and the studio has decided to give it another shot, but this time it looks like they may have done it right and created an Apes installment that could measure up to the best of the original film series, which debuted with the modern classic Planet of the Apes in 1968 and concluded with Battle for the Planet of the Apes in 1973 (not counting the live-action and animated television spin-offs that followed in the wake of the release of Battle).

The first trailer for 20th Century Fox’s upcoming Planet of the Apes prequel, titled Rise of the Planet of the Apes, has now been released online.

The movie shows the origins of the apes that eventually evolved beyond human beings and took over the planet after a scientist’s testing shows shocking advancements in evolution in one of the test subjects, named Caesar.

Instead of going with costumes and makeup, it was decided long ago to use the popular performance capture/CG technologies used in movies like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong, and Avatar. To make things a little easier, the same team that worked on those films, WETA Digital, was brought in for the job.

You can see the trailer below the line now.

Well gosh darn it — you want to think a movie is going to be terrible when you hear that said movie will be a Planet of the Apes prequel and that it will use CGI effects instead of the better-known costume and prosthetic effects. But despite all of the alarms going off in our heads about this project, every new casting announcement that comes along seems to add another level of intrigue.

It’s now being reported by The Wrap that the great Brian Cox will be joining the cast of Rise of the Apes, the 20th Century Fox prequel that will take place long before the events seen in Planet of the Apes. Cox will be playing a role he can play to absolute perfection: the villain. He would be playing the owner of a multitude of primates used for testing in a lab that he tends to treat very poorly. This spells bad things for Mr. Cox.

When it comes to computer animated primates, Andy Serkis is no rookie. In addition to his wonderful work bringing Gollum to life in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Serkis was the man behind the motion capture creation of Kong in Peter Jackson’s King Kong.

Now comes news that the actor is ready to become ape once again. In a Twitter message from 20th Century’s Fox’s vice president of corporate communications, Chris Petrikin, it was revealed that Serkis would be playing Caeser in their Planet of the Apes prequel, Rise of the Apes. The VP said “This is cool: Gollum reteams with Weta. Andy Serkis to star as Caesar in ‘Rise of the Apes,’ portraying chimp who leads the simian revolt.”