Wes Ball has revealed that Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes will mark the start of a new trilogy in the franchise.
The 43-year-old filmmaker is helming the upcoming flick that sees Owen Teague’s chimpanzee Cornelius take over the franchise’s lead role from Andy Serkis and promised that the new installment is the “beginning of something.”
Ball told Empire Magazine: “From the beginning we thought about this as a trilogy. We had these grand ideas where it could ultimately go and how it could fit into the legacy of these movies. So I’m certainly talking to (the studio) right now about the next story.”
He added…
The last three movies were about the end of something. They were about the end of this Moses story. They were about the end of humanity. And we thought, ‘From the ashes of those previous movies, we’re gonna grow a new tree to climb.’ This movie is very much about the beginning of something.
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Teague previously revealed how he sought advice from Serkis on how to adapt to the challenge of motion capture acting.
The 25-year-old star said: “Well, we all talked to Andy Serkis. He and I had a meeting, and he was part of why I became an actor. So this was something that I’d been wanting to do my entire life, and it was literally a dream come true to get to do this job and play this character … the hardest part about it was just learning how to be in a suit all day and have a camera strapped to your head. But you get used to it after about a week.”
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is scheduled to open in theaters on May 24, 2024.
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Gallery Credit: Josh Spiegel