First Photo From WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES Hints at Iconic Moment in The Franchise
Director Matt Reeves has started principal photography of War For The Planet of The Apes, the sequel to last year's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and third chronologically in the Apes franchise. The filmmaker took to his Twitter account yesterday to share a photo of the first day of the shoot:
Any time a beach comes into play in an Apes film, it's hard to think of anything else besides Charlton Heston's heartbreaking realization at the end of the very first movie:
I'm not saying Reeves' photo is in the exact same location from the first movie — it actually doesn't really look very much like Point Dume Beach in Malibu to me — but it's possible, and it might be teasing the origin of how Lady Liberty got halfway buried in the sand. We'll have to wait and see.
We know that Andy Serkis will reprise his role as ape leader Caesar, while Woody Harrelson will play a human villain and Steve Zahn will don a mo-cap suit to play an ape. Reeves has mentioned a bit about what we can expect from this sequel:
"The first one is sort of how [Caesar] goes from humble beginnings to becoming a revolutionary. In 'Dawn,' he really rose to occasion of becoming a leader in really challenging and difficult times. The notion of what we're after with the third is to sort of continue that trajectory and see how he becomes a seminal figure in ape history. He almost becomes sort of like an ape Moses. A mythic status... We're trying to play out those themes and continue to sort of explore it in this universe. Exploring human nature under the guise of apes."
War For The Planet of The Apes will arrive in theaters on July 14th, 2017.