Who Wrote Planet Of The Apes

Okay, let’s settle a bar bet that’s been simmering since bell-bottoms were cool. Who actually wrote Planet of the Apes? You’d think it was one person in a tweed jacket, chain-smoking and muttering “ape shall never kill ape.” Nope. It’s a beautiful, chaotic mess of multiple writers, a French novelist, a couple of Hollywood hacks, and one very grumpy leading man.

The Frenchman Who Started It All

The brain behind the whole “talking ape” nightmare was a French author named Pierre Boulle. He wrote the 1963 novel La Planète des Singes as a sharp satire, not a space opera. He was also a former spy and a banana farmer—yes, a guy who grew bananas for a living invented your childhood trauma.

Boulle’s book ends with a talking human couple, which is way less dramatic than the movie’s Statue of Liberty gut punch. Hollywood took his concept and said, “Great idea, Pierre. Now let’s make it sexy and terrifying.”

The Hollywood Tag-Team (And a Fake Name)

The actual screenplay was a wrestling match. Rod Serling—yes, the Twilight Zone guy—wrote a draft full of time paradoxes and a courtroom scene where apes debate evolution. But the studio hated it. So they brought in Michael Wilson, a blacklisted writer who couldn’t use his real name.

Wilson rewrote the script to be leaner and meaner, adding the iconic line, “Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!” He also fought to keep Charlton Heston’s character a cynical jerk, which is the secret sauce of the movie. For years, Boulle got sole credit—even though he didn’t speak English and wrote the “script” in his hotel room as a lark.

the Planet of the Apes

The Heston Factor

Here’s where it gets juicy. Charlton Heston, the star, hated the original ending where Taylor and Nova find a half-destroyed Statue of Liberty. Heston wanted the planet to be Earth from the start, not a twist. So Wilson and Serling wrote a new ending where Heston dramatically rants at a fallen monument. Heston loved it, but later claimed he “wrote” that scene.

Spoiler: He didn’t. But he did demand to be buried with his ape costume. (Okay, I made that last part up, but he had the power to demand anything.)

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The most underrated writer was John T. Kelley, a no-name dialogue polisher. He’s the guy who wrote the line, “I’m a seeker of truth, not a bad actor.” That’s the only joke Heston ever delivered with a straight face. Kelley also added the bit where an orangutan says, “The only good human is a dead human.” Charming.

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So the final credit reads like a crime scene: “Based on the novel by Pierre Boulle, screenplay by Rod Serling and Michael Wilson, with uncredited work by John T. Kelley and Charlton Heston’s ego.”

The Punchline

In 1968, the Academy gave Boulle an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay—even though he didn’t write the screenplay. He accepted it, in French, while Wilson and Serling watched from the audience. Wilson didn’t get his credit until 1996, decades after the film became a classic.

So next time someone asks you who wrote Planet of the Apes, just say: “A French spy, a blacklisted communist, and a man who thought monkeys should wear shoes.” Then walk away, because you’ve just won trivia night without even buying a drink.