LOS ANGELES, October 29, 2026 — Monogram Pictures is reviving "The Ape Man," the 1943 Monogram release starring Bela Lugosi, as a superhero reinterpretation for a new generation, Yaniv Raphael Bar, Chairman and President of Monogram Pictures, announced. The project, to which Monogram owns the rights, is in development.

The new "Ape Man" is designed to introduce its hero through a comic book before expanding into film, giving the character and his world room to grow and build an audience ahead of the screen adaptation. The comic is in development with Monogram Comics, led by Steve Stern, which publishes through 1First Comics.

In the film's logline, a brilliant but desperate scientist tests a radical gene therapy on himself to cure a rare disease. The treatment works, but it also awakens primal instincts buried deep in his DNA, turning him into something more animal than human. "The cure may be worse than the disease."

Monogram Animation has also produced an animated teaser that sets out the story. Adam, whose late father worked on a formula combining human and ape DNA to help Adam's younger brother, finds his father's notebook in college, makes the formula and tests it on himself. He becomes incredibly strong, but ape instincts and anger start to take over, and with help from his friend Phoenix he must learn to control them before facing Lionel, his father's former partner, who has his own unstable version of the formula. The new version is based on "Ape Man" by Ilay Ron and Michael Nassau, with story by Yaniv Raphael Bar.

"The Ape Man" is one of five films on Monogram's current development slate, alongside "ZEN: Intergalactic Ninja — Hard Bounty," "King of the Zombies," "The Living Ghost" and "Riders of Destiny."

"The original 'Ape Man' was pure Monogram: a big idea on a small budget," said Yaniv Raphael Bar. "Our version keeps the monster-movie DNA but asks a superhero question: what happens when the cure changes who you are?"

About Monogram Pictures

Monogram Pictures is an original Hollywood studio whose roots date to 1928 and W. Ray Johnston's Rayart Pictures. The company formally adopted the Monogram Pictures name in March 1931 and became one of the best-known studios of Hollywood's Poverty Row, releasing 730 titles from 1931 to 1953, including John Wayne's Lone Star westerns, the Charlie Chan mysteries, the East Side Kids and the Bowery Boys, and "Dillinger" (1945), whose screenplay earned an Academy Award nomination. In 1953 the company became Allied Artists Pictures Corp. Re-established by Allied Artists in 2021 and majority-owned by Allied Artists, Monogram Pictures is led by Yaniv Raphael Bar, Chairman and President of Monogram Pictures, with Chief Executive Officer Jared Safier, Executive Vice President Danielle Abergel, Senior Vice President Oshri Cohen and a team of department heads, and is building an entertainment company spanning film, television, animation, comics, music and distribution. For more information, visit https://monogrampictures.com.

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Monogram Pictures, https://monogrampictures.com

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