Twentieth Century Fox is busy putting together the pieces for a sequel to last summer’s blockbuster prequel, Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

It’s being reported that Fox has found a new writer, bringing in Scott Z. Burns to work on the project. Burns’ previous works include The Bourne Ultimatum, The Informant!, and Contagion.

Released last August, Rise of the Planet of the Apes overcame months of lackluster buzz to become one of the year’s unexpected blockbusters. It was the first truly great film in the Apes franchise since 1972’s Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and it benefited strongly from the central performance by Andy Serkis as the intelligent ape Caesar and the revolutionary motion-capture CGI used to bring the character to life. Although the actor’s performance was overlooked at Oscar time (as many great performances tend to be) the film’s impact on audiences and critics around the world was undeniable.

Rise‘s $468 million worldwide gross all but guaranteed additional sequels and in November we reported that Serkis had signed on to reprise the role of Caesar in a future return to the Planet of the Apes for a seven-figure salary. Director Rupert Wyatt was also set to return as his original contract for Rise contained an option for a sequel, with Rise screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver writing the script for the next Apes movie.

The digital movie rental of the day over at Amazon today is Rise of the Planet of the Apes for only $.99.

This deal is valid through today, Tuesday, April 3, 2012, until 11:59pm PST. Once you activate the rental through Amazon’s Instant Video on demand service, you’ll have access to the movie for 48 hours. If you’re interested in purchasing the digital version, the cost is $14.99.

Also, if you’d like to own a physical copy of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the Blu-ray/DVD Combo Edition is available for $19.99 while the DVD is $15.49. The Blu-ray edition is part of Amazon’s “Buy This DVD and Watch it Instantly” program “” you get the film as a FREE digital rental you can watch immediately when your purchase the physical copy.

Having just hired a writer for their planned sequel to X-Men: First Class, 20th Century Fox is also moving forward with a sequel to another one of their hit summer movies, Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

The studio reached a deal with performance capture king Andy Serkis to reprise his role as Caesar the ape, which will see him paid a hefty seven-figure sum. Serkis is the man to see when it comes to performance capture work, having given life to characters like Gollum and Kong in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong, and it’s exciting to see the man score some big paydays (he was paid well to return for The Hobbit as well).

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (read my review HERE ) took the top spot at the weekend box office, pulling in $54 million in just its first three days of release. This is good news for 20th Century Fox and the filmmakers, who had a continuing film franchise in mind when creating the latest movie. Rise director Rupert Wyatt has a few interesting ideas of his own regarding a possible sequel.

In an interview with Bleeding Cool, Wyatt said he has a wide range of ideas for a sequel, one of which would be “Full Metal Jacket with apes.” (Continue reading for Wyatt’s ideas and note, if you haven’t seen Rise of the Planet of the Apes, some of the content could be considered Spoilers.)