KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES Was Initially Pitched as "APOCALYPTO With Apes"
When director Wes Ball pitched Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes to Disney and 20th Century Studios, he initially described it to them as "Apocalypto with apes." He is referring to director Mel Gibson’s 2006 historical Mayan adventure film, which was a great movie!
Apocalypto is set in ancient Maya civilization. The story follows a young tribesman named Jaguar Paw, who must rescue his pregnant wife and son from a ruthless group of Mayan warriors after their village is raided. The film is a visceral and intense journey through the lush and dangerous jungle, showcasing the brutality and sophistication of the Mayan culture as Jaguar Paw battles to survive and protect his family.
During an interview with Empire, producer Joe Hartwick says the main goal of this movie 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."
VFX Supervisor Erik Winquist went on to share that they're just embracing what made the 1968 original Planet of the Apes films so great. He teased a big river-rapids chase scene which he described as a "big, cataclysmic biblical kind of event.: He added:
"It was apparent on the page that this was going to be tricky in a number of instances, where you’ve got wet apes. You start getting into the need to deal with how the water affects the fur and how the fur affects the water. Thankfully we just came off a film called The Way Of Water, so we’ve been able to harness a lot of the experience and the tech that went into that film."
It was previously 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.”
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.