Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes won’t see Andy Serkis or Matt Reeves return to the “Apes” franchise, but director Wes Ball revealed Serkis had a ton of supportive input.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Ball revealed that he was in contact with Serkis throughout the movie, due to the importance of Caesar (the role Serkis played in the three previous films) in Kingdom.
“Caesar is very much a character in this story, he’s an important character in this story, so we wanted to make sure we were getting it right,” Ball said. “Andy is just a nice dude — he read the script, listened to me babble on about what we wanted to do with the story, showed him all the concept art, just nothing but support. He understood that we had to be kind of courageous and brave and do what we were trying to do here. When I finally showed the movie to Andy and he wrote me a very nice email and gave me the thumbs up, that was everything to me.”
Owen Teague — who plays Noa in the upcoming film — also said he got to speak with Serkis while making the movie, and relished the chance to do so.
“I’ve looked up to him since I was a little kid and I wanted to take everything that he was going to give me.” Teague also said that Serkis explained to him that playing an ape “is just acting really, there’s no mystery. It’s not about impersonating an ape, it’s really about finding the truth of the character and pursuing 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.”
