KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES Director Explains He Wanted To Bring a Little Bit of STAR WARS To It
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes actually looks like it might be a film that will breathe new life into the Planet of the Apes franchise. This next film is a continuation of the films that Matt Reeves directed, but the story is set several years after those events.
The movie will be the middle-ground between the Caesar trilogy and the timeline of the original Planet of the Apes films. During a recent interview with Empire, director Wes Ball (The Maze Runner) talked about his movie and said that it’s an adventure movie, which will give it a different tone than the darker films of the previous trilogy. He explained that he wanted his movie to have a little bit of Star Wars in it and a younger spirit. He explained to Empire:
“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. Our main character – the young, impressionable Noa [Owen Teague] – 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.”
That makes sense to me and I get what he’s saying. You can definitely see that in the trailer that was released. When talking about the setting for the film, Ball shared:
“I wanted to do a big leap forward in time. It’s significant enough that Caesar is still a spirit in the movie, but most of his living relatives are not in this picture. If the last three movies were the Stone Age, here we get to see what happens when they enter the Bronze Age.”
I do like what Ball is bringing to this movie, and I’m curious to see if he managed to make a great film. In the movie, “Some groups have never heard of Caesar, while others have contorted his teaching to build burgeoning empires. In this setting, one ape leader begins to enslave other groups to find human technology, while another ape, who watched his clan be taken, embarks on a journey to find freedom. A young human woman becomes key to latter’s quest, although she has plans of her own.”
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.