The upcoming Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes features some incredible visual effects, but when the film releases physically, fans can watch without them.
Speaking to Ape Nation in a recent interview (via Total Film), director Wes Ball revealed that he was working on a cut of the film that would comprise fully of the raw dailies from filming. This would present the film without any VFX, and would instead show the actors in their motion capture shoots acting out the film.
“I’m doing a little thing for the DVD where you can watch the movie — the entire movie — with the raw dailies,” Ball said. “I’m working on that, where you’ll be able to watch and see both the final [cut] and the raw dailies. You can see how close they get, what they do, and how they stitch everything together. It’s amazing, and you can just sit there and enjoy it.”
Ball said that the feature would have commentary with VFX supervisor Erik Winquist and would be made for “geeks” who want to see more of the behind-the-scenes aspects of the film.
“I’ll do some commentary over it with Erik [Winquist], our VFX [supervisor],” said Ball. “I think it’s gonna be great. For geeks like us, it’s gonna be a first. They’ve never seen this kind of thing,” he continued enthusiastically. “Some of the hardest stuff in VFX is how you get CG characters to interact with others. So we have a human girl hugging a CG ape and it’s like, ‘How do you do that?'”
What is Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes about?
“Director Wes Ball breathes new life into the global, epic franchise 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,” reads the synopsis. “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.”
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is written by Josh Friedman, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver, the latter of whom was also a writer for Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The film is produced by Patrick Aison, Joe Hartwick Jr., Jaffa, Silver, and Jason Reed.
The next film in the Planet of the Apes series is set to star William H. Macy, Owen Teague, Freya Allen, Dichen Lachman, and Peter Macon, among others. The upcoming film is set “many years” following the events of 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes. After Caesar brought his people to an oasis, new ape societies have grown while humans have been reduced to a more “feral-like existence.”
