Go Ape for a Day

Planet of the Apes was already a successful film series by 1973, but Fox found a new way to sell it. Instead of treating the first five movies as separate releases, they turned them into an event. One ticket. One theater. One very long day. On Tuesday, June 12, 1973, the Warfield Theater in San Francisco ran all five Planet of the Apes films back to back, one day before Battle for the Planet of the Apes opened to the public. The marquee read “Go Ape for a Day.” Two thousand, two hundred people formed a block long line for a dollar ticket. The complete showing ran nine hours, longer than a back to back pairing of epics Ben Hur and Gone With the Wind. James Sutton, district manager for National General Theaters, watched the crowd pour in and said, “We ought to sell a lot of hot dogs.”The theater sold four thousand of them.The San Francisco Chronicle found Kris Lewellen and Lane Lees, both thirteen, who had gotten out of bed at 7am to be first in line. A seventeen year old told the paper…