The Hollywood Reporter were at the Visual Effects Society Production Summit over the weekend, where Fox’s president of post-production, Ted Gagliano, revealed that Will Rodman, the human lead of the film, as played by James Franco, was only saved from death by reshoots that took place only a month before the film hit theaters.
Gagliano explained that initially, director Rupert Wyatt and the scriptwriters planned for Rodman to die at the conclusion of the film’s final setpiece, but was reprieved at the last minute, with Franco and Andy Serkis being called back for reshoots over the Fourth of July weekend.
The surprise hit of the summer, and in my opinion the best movie of the year so far, has one more surprise up it's furry sleeve. Instead of having Caesar and his army of apes just takeover the forest, and Will letting go of Caesar there was almost a darker ending. There was to be one more battle in the forest and Will was going to sacrifice his own life to protect his friend, Casear. Check out the script below for how it all would've played out.