Apes Exceeds Expectations on Strong Word of Mouth — and the buzz is all about Andy Serkis' Motion Capture Performance as Caesar the Ape

The returns are in — Rise of the Planet of the Apes brought in $54m its first weekend and far exceeded expectations which were in the mid 30m range.  Word of mouth is clearly helping the pic tremendously — and a lot of that word of mouth is all about Andy Serkis (“Gollum” from LOTL) and his remarkable motion capture performance as Caesar, the ape who is the center of the drama in the picture.

This raises a question :  back when Serkis played Gollum I thought he should be considered for a supporting actor  Oscar nod, but the technology of motion capture was not well enough understood back then.  Now that people understand better the human performance dynamics that go into motion capture — how is this different from prosthetic enhanced performance?  Isn’t it pretty much the same, in the end?

Check out the featurette below.  It tells the tale: