KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES Release Date Moved Up
Director Wes Ball’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has gotten a new release date. The movie was originally set to be released on May 24, 2024, and it will now be released on May 10. I’m excited about this movie, and it looks like Ball has made a film that will take audiences on a grand adventure.
This next film in the epic franchise 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.”
It was revealed that the movie will be the middle-ground between the Caesar trilogy and the timeline of the original Planet of the Apes films. During a previous interview with the director, he also talked about the adventurous aspect of the film and how he wanted his movie to have a little bit of Star Wars in it and a younger spirit. He explained:
“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.”
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.”
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.”
Producer Joe Hartwick previously said the main goal of this project is to deliver a movie that is a bit more fun and adventurous than the other films in the franchise:
"The last couple of movies concerned Caesar’s burden. Much like The Dark Knight, they felt heavy - super-enjoyable, but super-intense. We’re going in a different direction. Noa still has a burden, but it’s wrapped in a different level of adventure, mostly because the character hasn’t been exposed to the outside world before. So we’re seeing him see the world for the first time."
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 10, 2024.