With Dawn of the Planet of the Apes currently tearing up the box office and garnering near universal praise [read our two ★★★★★ reviews here and here], director Matt Reeves has offered up some insight into where the already-announced third movie (which is set for July 26th, 2016) may head during an interview with The Playlist. Be warned, spoilers for the end of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
“Mark Bomback and I are going to be writing the next one and we have a lot of ideas but you know we’re going to take a moment to breathe. We just finished this one so we’ll see where it goes but we have a lot of ideas we just have to sit down and start it all up again. But it’s really important to me that whatever we do next is something that can be better than Dawn, so hopefully we can achieve that aim. I don’t necessarily think that there will be as big a leap between films. I see Casear as a seminal figure in ape history and he’s a mythic character. He’s essentially like their Moses and I think Caesar having to grapple with what it means to engage in this conflict that he doesn’t really want to be a part of and how that cuts at his core is going to be one of the great challenges for the character. I also think it’s a generational story. He has children and I think it’s going to be… to me there are many chapters of this mythic ape journey towards the original ’68 movie.”
And as for when the rebooted series will finally catch up with the original Planet of the Apes, Reeves suggested that there’s still plenty of material to be mined: “I think there are a number of films and stories to be told here, absolutely. That’s what’s exciting about it. The question is: are the audiences interested in going on that journey with us? The disparity between the way the world looks in Dawn and the way it looked in the ’68 film is huge so how do we get from here to there? Then when we do get there, if we do get there, how is that world different by virtue of the new point of view that we’ve taken? ”
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is directed by Matt Reeves (Let Me In) and sees Rise of the Planet of the Apes star Andy Serkis returning as Caesar alongside Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty), Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight Rises), Keri Russell (Mission: Impossible III), Toby Kebbell (Wrath of the Titans), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In), Enrique Murciano (Black Hawk Down), Kirk Acevedo (The Thin Red Line) and Judy Greer (13 Going on 30).
Originally published July 19, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
