Mark Your Calendars for 'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes'
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
The Planet of the Apes reboot, which started in 2011 with Rupert Wyatt’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, has become one of the most exciting and profitable franchises in recent history. Followed by Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) and War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), the series grossed more than $2 billion worldwide on a combined $567.5 million budget. In addition to being a financial success, the revival was a critical hit, lauded for combining gritty realism and emotional depth with action-packed genre thrills. (The first three movies even generated Oscar buzz for Andy Serkis’s motion-capture performance as Caesar, the leading ape who—spoiler alert—died in the third film.)
The highly anticipated next installment, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, looks to push the franchise into fresh territory, focusing on a new generation of apes living in a world where the apes are now the apex species while humans have devolved into a feral state.
From release date to cast, here’s everything we know about Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.
What is the release date for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes?
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is set to premiere May 24, 2024. The Memorial Day weekend release will face some steep box-office competition with George Miller’s Furiosa, a sequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, which is scheduled to debut the same day. Perhaps this will be Barbenheimer 2.0 situation, though? Furiosa of the Apes?
Who is in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes cast?
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Owen Teague
Deadline reported last year that Owen Teague was tapped to play the lead role in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. The actor is said to have wowed producers and director Wes Ball with his screen tests.
Teague has previously appeared in Black Mirror, It and The Stand. While many believed Teague's role to be that of Caesar's son Cornelius, he's actually playing a new chimpanzee named Noa.
Freya Allan
Freya Allan has been cast as Mae, a feral woman who befriends Noa. Allan is most known for her performance as Ciri in the popular Netflix series The Witcher. She is also starring later this year in the film Baghead, which is a feature length adaptation of a popular 2017 horror short.
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Peter Macon
Peter Macon’s role in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes will be Raka, a wise, old orangutan. Macon’s most prominent role thus far has been in the Seth McFarlane spoof TV series The Orville.
Eka Darville
The Hollywood Reporter revealed late last year that Eka Darville joined the cast of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, though his character’s details have been kept under wraps.
Darville is best known for staring opposite Krysten Ritter in the Marvel Netflix series Jessica Jones. He also appeared in Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell alongside Elisabeth Moss and in Fox’s popular TV series Empire.
Kevin Durand
Kevin Durand is set to play Proximus Caesar, the film's villain. Durand is best known for playing the lead role in the Netflix hit TV series Locke & Key, which is based on the IDW comic book. He has also starred in DC Universe’s Swamp Thing.
William H. Macy
William H. Macy’s role in the movie is currently unknown, but he's undoubtedly the cast's most veteran and decorated actor, having worked in the industry for nearly three decades with Oscar-nominated performances in Fargo and The Cooler, and an Emmy-nominated role in Shameless.
Related: The 'Shameless' Cast Is Crazy Busy—Find Out What They're Up to Today
Is there a trailer for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes?
The first teaser trailer for the film was released on Nov. 2, 2023 and shows what the world of the apes looks like generations after Caesar's rule.
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Who is the director of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes?
As announced in December 2019, Fox tapped Wes Ball to direct Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. He worked previously with Matt Reeves, director of the last two installments of the Apes franchise, on the film Mouse Guard, which was cancelled after the Disney-Fox merger. With Matt Reeves busy working on a new series of Batman films for DC, Ball was brought on board to direct the new Planet of the Apes movie. The director is best known for his work on the Maze Runner franchise, for which he directed all three installments.
What will happen in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes?
Wes Ball indicated shortly after coming on as director that the upcoming Planet of the Apes installments would focus on “Caesar’s legacy.” Mark Bomback, who was Matt Reeves’ co-writer on the previous films, said that he envisioned the series going into a future where Caesar becomes known to future generations as a Moses-like figure.
It was then revealed earlier in 2023 that the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes would take place many years after the events that unfolded in War for the Planet of the Apes, in a world in which many ape societies had emerged from the one Caesar started. While apes live in an oasis where they are the dominant species, human beings have devolved into a feral state. Conflicts arise between ape groups who follow Caesar’s teachings and those who reject or contort his words to build their own ruling empires, including a villain ape character who begins to enslave other apes.
Planet of the Apes as a film series is originally adapted from Pierre Boulle’s landmark 1963 novel La Planète des singes, which tells the story of a group of three humans who travel from Earth to a distant planet where apes live as the dominant species and humans are savages. It seems from the plot description of the upcoming installment that the series maybe be headed towards the narrative arc of Boulle’s original story. But we’ll just have to wait and see if that's the case.