KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES Being Compared to AVATAR and DUNE by Producers
I’m pretty excited about director Wes Ball’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes movie. I saw some extended footage from it at CinemaCon, and it looks like it’s going to deliver an exciting cinematic adventure.
This movie isn’t going to be like the previous films that have been made. This movie has a different tone and it’s set centuries after War For The Planet of the Apes. The world has completely changed in this new movie.
The producers of the new movie, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, opened up about the film and compared it to Avatar and Dune.
When explaining how, Jaffa told SFX magazine: "Well, the world has changed. On a thematic level it’s asking different questions, and the characters are different.”
He continued: “I’d also say the same thing that you could say for Avatar or Dune: it’s visually stunning. There’s nothing like it, really. That experience, in the theatre, of a whole new world. Yes, it’s our world, but our world looks different."
Silver added: "It’s a beautiful film, anchored in beautiful characters that you really care about. Yes, you’ve got this epic landscape, but none of it works unless it’s anchored by great characters and a compelling story.”
She went on to say: “This next adventure offers things that are brand new, fresh surprises, while being familiar and while honoring the past."
The movie has previously been compared to films such as Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, specifically regarding the main character Noa, who is liked to Luke Skywalker and Frodo Baggins.
The director explained how that is the case: "Noa fits that archetype. He's a new character we can identify with, appreciate, and respect because he's incredibly kind and nice.
“But he is going to undergo this great transformation, or at least the beginnings of one in this movie, where that innocence is robbed of him a little bit."
Ha also said: “When I first started on it, I said, ‘I feel like Apes needs a little bit of Star Wars. It’s all still very grounded in reality, but it is essentially a quest narrative.”
Ball continued: “Our main character – the young, impressionable Noa – meets characters along the way and becomes awakened as he winds up in a place that will test him, and he ultimately becomes his true self. We haven’t kiddified it, or Disneyfied it, if I’m allowed to say that! But we have brought a younger spirit to it.”
The movie is set “several generations in the future following Caesar’s reign, in which apes are the dominant species living harmoniously and humans have been reduced to living in the shadows.
“As a new tyrannical ape leader builds his empire, one young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question all that he has known about the past and to make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.”
The cast includes Owen Teague (It), Freya Allen (The Witcher), and Peter Macon (The Orville).
The script for the film comes from Josh Friedman (War of the Worlds), Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), and Patrick Aison (Prey). It also co-stars Travis Jeffery (Unbroken), Neil Sandilands (Sweet Tooth), Sara Wiseman (One Of Us Is Lying), Ras-Samuel Welda’abzgi (The Clearing), Lydia Peckham (Cowboy Bebop), and Kevin Durand.
The movie is set to be released in theaters on May 24, 2024.