The “Planet Of The Apes” franchise is taking a new turn, and the next swing belongs to Matt Shakman. After helping relaunch Marvel’s “Fantastic Four” franchise with “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and giving “WandaVision” life, the genre-friendly filmmaker is set to direct a new untitled “Planet Of The Apes” movie, with Josh Friedman writing the script.
The pair recently worked together on “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” and Friedman already has direct “Apes” experience, having written “Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes.” Deadline reports that the new film is not the next direct “Kingdom” sequel, but an original “Planet Of The Apes” story being developed by Shakman and Friedman.
The news also raises a larger question about the franchise’s future under Wes Ball. “Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes” was widely positioned as the beginning of a new chapter, with room for more stories in that timeline. But if 20th Century Studios is now moving forward with an original “Planet Of The Apes” film from Shakman and Friedman—rather than a direct “Kingdom” sequel—it certainly sounds like the studio is putting Ball’s track on ice. Nothing has been officially declared dead, but in franchise terms, a new filmmaker and a new original direction usually say plenty.
For 20th Century Studios, that is a fairly revealing move. The modern “Planet Of The Apes” films have become one of the rare legacy-franchise revivals to maintain a genuine sense of creative identity. “Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes,” “Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes,” and “War For The Planet Of The Apes” built a full tragic arc around Caesar. At the same time “Kingdom” widened the timeline and treated the franchise less as a closed trilogy than as a future history with room to keep mutating.
Shakman is an interesting filmmaker to bring into that sandbox because his résumé already suggests someone comfortable moving between intimate character beats and massive franchise scale. Before “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” he directed episodes of “Game Of Thrones,” “WandaVision,” and “Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters”—three very different projects that still require a command of mythology, spectacle, and emotional clarity. The “Apes” franchise, at its best, needs exactly that balance: world-building that feels enormous without letting the allegory get overwhelmed by scale.
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Friedman’s involvement may be the more important continuity point. “Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes” had to do difficult franchise labor: honor the Caesar films without repeating them, introduce new ape characters, and reposition the series for a post-Caesar world. His move onto this separate original story suggests 20th Century is still testing how flexible the “Planet Of The Apes” universe can be.
There are no cast details, title, or release date yet. And since this is not being positioned as the next direct “Kingdom” installment, it remains unclear how—or whether—it will connect to the existing modern timeline. That ambiguity may be part of the appeal. “Planet Of The Apes” has always been durable because its premise can absorb different eras, anxieties, and kinds of collapse.
