While Matt Reeves was able to finish his ‘Apes’ story with 2017’s “War for the Planet of the Apes,” it appears that Disney isn’t ready to let the franchise gather dust. The studio has already announced that filmmaker Wes Ball has been brought on to work on a new sequel to the previous trilogy, but we still don’t know too much about the plot of the film, nor how it will fit with the other films. However, according to Ball’s new interview with Discussing Film, fans of the previous ‘Apes’ films have nothing to worry about.
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The filmmaker began by talking about how much he enjoyed the other recent ‘Planet of the Apes’ films and considers them to be classics, already. Ball said the most recent ‘Apes’ films are “one of the great trilogies” in modern movie history. He added, “Caesar is one of the great movie characters that we’ll have throughout time. So what do you do to follow that up, right? At the same time, I wasn’t interested in doing a part four either. We want to also do our own thing.”
So, how do you follow up the work that was done by filmmakers like Rupert Wyatt and Matt Reeves on the previous trilogy? Well, he can’t say much, but Ball wants to assure fans of the recent ‘Apes’ films that there is enough of the team from the previous features working on the new sequel doesn’t undo anything that came before. However, the filmmaker is going into new territory.
“We have a take,” said Ball. “We have a way of staying in the universe that was created before us, but we’re also opening ourselves up in being able to do some really cool new stuff. Again, I’m trying to be careful here.”
He continued, “I’ll say this, for fans of the original three don’t worry – you’re in good hands. The original writers and producers that came up with ‘Rise’ and ‘Dawn,’ Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, they’re also on board with this. Josh Friedman is writing this thing, a lot of the same crew is kind of involved. We will feel like we’re part of that original trilogy, but at the same time, we’re able to do some really cool new stuff. It will be really exciting to see on the biggest screen possible.”
The filmmaker went on to say that they’re still in the pre-production phase of the film, with concept art and scripting being done now. However, Ball thinks that “virtual production” might be able to happen soon, considering the film is largely CGI. There’s no release date set for the new ‘Apes’ film.