EXCLUSIVE
KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES New hairy hero Noa heads up a fresh chapter in the apocalyptic primate saga, as past and future begin to converge…
Humanity’s devolution, Caesar’s death, his son Cornelius continuing his legacy… it’s a satisfying place to pause. Our minds can fill in the gap between the Planet of the Apes prequel saga’s conclusion and where the story picks up in the original 1968 film, set 2,000-odd years in the future. And yet here comes Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, starting a likely new trilogy.
Set 300-ish years after War…, it follows young ape Noa (Owen Teague), living under the rule of tyrannical leader Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), an evolved bonobo who has rejected Caesar’s credo and is enslaving apes as he searches for lost human tech. A journey of discovery begins for Noa when the chimpanzee meets Mae (Freya Allen), a young feral human.
‘All these trilogies tend to wane a little bit by the end,’ says director Wes Ball, known for the dystopian Maze Runner films. He had to ask himself, why make a new movie? ‘There’s something uninteresting about just following the adventures of Caesar’s son. The fact that we get to [time] jump and start with new characters, a new story, and have a new perspective on things, opens up a host of new ideas.’
Ball’s aim? To balance the tone of the existing trilogy with ‘turning a new page’. The music is designed to pull everything together – Ball asked composer John Paesano to take one part Jerry Goldsmith, who scored the original 1968 Apes, and one part Dawn and War’s Michael Giacchino. ‘The rest is yours,’ he told him. ‘These movies are bigger than any director, any actor,’ says Ball. ‘There is a huge, long legacy. We’re trying to make sure that we’re staying not faithful [to] but respectful of what’s come before us.’
Aesthetically, Kingd
