Beneath The Planet of The Apes - Production

Production

Charlton Heston showed little interest in reprising his role as George Taylor from the first movie, but agreed to briefly appear with the provision that Taylor be killed at the story's start and that, instead of being paid, the producers donate money to charity. According to Associate Producer Mort Abrahams, Heston refused initially to appear in the sequel but "he made so much money out of the first one" that studio head Richard Zanuck asked Heston to do a cameo as a favor. Although Heston did not profit from this film, Taylor disappears at the story's start, only to be reunited with Brent much later in the movie and die at the end. Heston claimed it was his idea that Taylor detonate the "ΑΩ" (Alpha Omega) doomsday bomb. Taylor and the mutants and apes would die when the bomb, as Taylor says in the film, would "Burn the planet to a cinder. How's that for your ultimate weapon?" Fox studio exec Richard Zanuck agreed. Heston hoped that would end the series. This turned out not to be the case, since three additional sequels were made by APJAC Productions. An alternate script idea was for Taylor to escape with Nova and father a race of intelligent humans.

The project was originally offered to up and coming actor Burt Reynolds who turned down the film. The film had its budget reduced and went through extensive rewrites including one by star James Franciscus to help clarify the actions of and give depth to the character of Brent. Director Ted Post also spent considerable time working on the script writing numerous memos to Associate Producer Mort Abrahams suggesting story ideas to fix some of the narrative problems in Paul Dehn's script. According to screenwriter Dehn the idea for "Beneath" came about from the end of the first movie which suggested that New York City was buried underground.

Roddy McDowall could not return for his role in this sequel, because he was in Scotland directing Tam Lin. Actor David Watson portrays Cornelius through most of the film.

Orson Welles was offered the role of General Ursus, but he turned it down. The part ultimately went to James Gregory. The most famous line he would speak in the film was "The only good human is a dead human!!" In an interview with Phantom of the Movies' Videoscope magazine, Gregory noted that he often signed publicity photos of himself as Ursus with that phrase.

The sets of the mutant's council chamber and the temple of the bomb were redresses of the Grand Central – 42nd Street station and hotel lobby sets from the film Hello, Dolly! Contrary to myth, the council chamber set was not redressed as a pool in the movie Superman as Beneath was filmed in the United States and Superman was filmed entirely in the United Kingdom (with the exception of some location shooting in Canada and New York City and some background plates of desert land). The pool set was later used again in Arnold Schwarzenegger's Last Action Hero.