Steve Zahn Will Play An Ape in WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES

Both Rise and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes were surprisingly great movies, with deep, layered characters and complex themes that have me excited about the future of this franchise. Dawn director Matt Reeves is coming back to direct the third film in the prequel saga, War For The Planet of The Apes (previously thought to be titled War of The Planet of the Apes) and he already has Woody Harrelson lined up to play the villain. Harrelson and the other recently-announced cast member, Gabriel Chavarria, are both playing humans, while Andy Serkis will reprise his lead role as Caesar, slipping back into the motion-capture equipment once again.

Now The Wrap has news about the addition of one more person to the mix: Steve Zahn will play "a new ape" in the movie, which is set to hit theaters on July 14th, 2017. Unfortunately, that's all the new information available about his character, so we're left wondering exactly what kind of relationship he'll have with Caesar: will he be a friend, or perhaps another foe along the lines of Koba (Toby Kebbell) in the previous movie? I'd like to think Caesar has proven himself to be the dominant ape leader at this point, and the conflict in this movie (as hinted at in the title) will be squarely between humans and apes without a lot of infighting on either side.

Zahn had quite a moment in the early 2000s when he was starring in a ton of movies and landing some solid supporting roles, and though he's been steadily working ever since, he hasn't had the kind of impact on the big screen lately that he once did. This will be the biggest project he's been a part of in some time, and it'll be interesting to see what he can do with motion-capture as an ape without having audiences recognize him from more comedic roles. (If you haven't seen the excellent 2009 thriller A Perfect Getaway, it's a great example of what he can do outside of straight comedies.)

GeekTyrant Homepage