The Planet of the Apes trilogy is one of the most acclaimed of recent years. Both a prequel to and a reboot of (preboot?) the five-movie series that began in 1968 with Planet of the Apes - itself loosely based on the 1963 Pierre Boulle novel - the modern reimagining kicked off in 2011 with Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Over the course of the three films, we followed the arc of noble, superintelligent ape Caesar. Beginning as a sort of secondary Patient Zero smart-chimp (his mother, Bright Eyes, actually passes the genetic mutation to her son), he would ultimately become a benevolent ape leader in a near-future post-apocalyptic society until his death in trilogy-closer War.
But you can’t keep a good franchise down. Fast forward to 2024 and audiences are poised for a ‘soft reboot’. Director Wes Ball refutes the tag; writer/producers Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa refer to it as a reset. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the fourth in this series, picking up hundreds of years after the events of War. Caesar is long gone; forgotten by most.
But one ape, a bonobo named Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), has twisted Caesar’s teachings to his purpose, enslaving apes as he searches for longlost human technology to reaffirm the new world order, while a young chimpanzee, Noa (Owen Teague), embarks on a journey of discovery meeting young human Nova (The Witcher’s Freya Allan) along the way.
was released in 2017 by 20th Century Fox. The studio has since been taken over by Disney, so should we expect a film).
