'War for the Planet of the Apes' Director Looks Ahead to Fourth Film and Beyond
The modern Planet of the Apes franchise has been a particularly impressive one, growing from Rise of the Planet of the Apes to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes with heightened sense of scope, and it seems that will be upped again for the upcoming third film.
The new film will toss main ape Caesar into a war that he never wanted any part of, pushing him to the darker corners of his own psyche. But director Matt Reeves and producer Dylan Clark are already looking ahead to the future of the series.
The two have revealed that they "absolutely" have ideas about where to next. The filmmakers see the endgame, which is essentially where the original Planet of the Apes starts off, as "the best part," of the process.
"Because we know that that’s the ending, that it becomes Planet of the Apes, the cool thing about what was started in Rise is, that it’s no longer about what happens. It’s about how it happens. And stories about how are always about character and psychology. So in our minds, the idea that’s the end of the story gives us the chance to tell an epic saga that leads from where Caesar began in Rise to that world. It’s not about getting there and then redoing that story. We think it’s like a great Russian novel or something, and it’s all about following Caesar on that journey and the other apes as it builds along that way.
"And you know the ending, but what you do know is also that the world is not that world. So how did it change? Caesar’s apes are not like the apes in the Planet of the Apes, right? They’re very brutal to the humans. That’s not what’s going on, so how did that happen? And you know that Cesar had such integrity, and that he has this sort of sense of right and wrong, of his morality, yet you watch that be challenged. He ends up having to kill one of his own. All of those things give us a chance to explore human nature and do it in a way that is really fun. ‘Cause these are all, frankly, totally new stories. We’re not doing any stories that were done."
Source: Slashfilm
