Project A.P.E. was a promotional event in a collaboration between Geocaching & 20th Century Fox to promote Planet of the Apes (2001), directed by Tim Burton.
The Promotion[]
In the early months of 2001, 20th Century Fox collaborated with Geocaching to create a promotion to generate interest for their 2001 summer blockbuster; Planet of the Apes. Nicknamed “Project A.P.E.”, the promotion targeted Geocachers as the primary audience. Over the course of several weeks in 2001, 14 specially marked 60mm ammo containers (geocaches) were hidden in the USA, UK, Brazil, Australia and Japan. Each A.P.E. cache contained an authentic movie prop from Planet of the Apes, as well as other movie memorabilia. Two caches even had tickets to the film’s premiere in London & New York.
The most active Geocachers in each area were assisted with placing the caches. Every week throughout the promotion, vague clues were released to a cache on the Project A.P.E. website (projectape.com, now offline), with clues narrowing down the location until final coordinates were released on a Friday. Then it was a race to find the cache, with the first to find getting the pick of the items in the cache. Sadly most of the caches did not last more than a few weeks or a couple of finds. Some caches managed to last over a few months / years, although that was unusual. As of 2022, only 2 of the original A.P.E. caches are still available to find today!. The whereabouts to the original items are unknown, although a Project A.P.E. collectible was listed on an auction site for around 350$ in early 2022.
The Project A.P.E. Backstory[]
20th Century Fox formulated a subplot that had absolutely nothing to do with the movie: Renegade humans were trying to reveal an “Alternative Primate Evolution” theory by placing artifacts around the world. Code Name: Project A.P.E. Quite simply; Planet of the Apes movie props were being hidden in Geocaches worldwide, and it was up to people to find them.