- No one can stop the reign.
- Official Tagline
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes[2][3] is a 2024 science fiction action film written by Josh Friedman and directed by Wes Ball. A new chapter following the previous three films, it takes place 300 years after Caesar's time,[4] and follows the chimpanzee, Noa and the human, Mae as they embark on a journey that will determine the future of the planet for both their species.
Synopsis
300 years after the war between the San Francisco Ape Colony and the Alpha-Omega,[4] several ape clans have emerged from the Oasis to which Caesar had led his fellow apes, while humans have regressed into a feral state. When the ape leader, Proximus Caesar perverts the teachings of Caesar to enslave other clans in search of last traces of human technology, the ape, Noa embarks on a journey to find freedom alongside a young mysterious woman, named Mae.[5]
Plot
Many generations after Caesar's passing, the apes have established various clans, while most humans have become feral. A chimpanzee of a falconry Eagle Clan, named Noa prepares for a coming of age ceremony by collecting eagle eggs with his friends Anaya and Soona. But a human scavenger follows Noa home and inadvertently cracks his egg during a scuffle before fleeing. While searching for a replacement egg, Noa encounters a group of ape raiders using electric weapons. As he hides from them, the apes follow Noa's horse to track down his clan. Upon returning home, Noa finds his village burning, with the raider leader, Sylva overpowering Noa's father, Koro, before knocking Noa unconscious and off the clan's aviary tower.
Noa awakens, discovering that his clan has been abducted and his father's body lifeless. He buried his father and sets out to rescue his clan. On his journey, he is joined by an orangutan named Raka, who tells Noa about Caesar's teachings. The two apes notice they are being followed by the human scavenger. Raka offers her food and Noa's mother's robe for warmth, naming the female Nova. When the trio encounters a group of feral humans, Sylva's raiders suddenly attack them. Noa and Raka rescue Nova, who, to their surprise, can speak. She reveals that her name is Mae and that the raiders took Noa's clan to a beachfront settlement located outside an old human vault.
While on their way to the settlement, they are ambushed by Sylva while attempting to cross a bridge. In the ensuing fight, Raka saves Mae from drowning but fell into the river from his weight and got swept away by the rapids after Sylva cut the net from the bridge. Noa and Mae are captured and taken to the apes' coastal settlement. There, Noa reunites with his clan, and is introduced to the self-proclaimed ape king, Proximus Caesar. Proximus has enslaved Noa's clan and other ape clans, using their labor to attempt to open the vault and access the human technology locked inside. Proximus invites Noa to dinner along with Mae and Trevathan, a human who has allied himself with the apes, teaching Proximus about the old human world. Proximus believes that Noa knows how to open the vault and warns him that Mae only has her own interests in mind. At sunset, Noa's mother Dar explained that their clan now belongs to Proximus, which Noa almost accepted until he renewed his courage from Raka's pendant. He was then acknowledge as leader of the Eagle Clan by his father's eagle.
With his renewed strength, Noa confronts Mae, demanding the truth in exchange for his help. Mae discloses knowledge of a hidden vault entry, and a mysterious book capable of restoring speech to humanity. Noa agrees to help her gain access to the vault, hoping to destroy both the vault's contents and Proximus' settlement while freeing his clan and returning home. Noa, Mae, Soona, and Anaya secretly plant explosives around the sea levee that surrounds the vault and settlement. Trevathan attempted to warn Proximus, but Mae kills him. As the group enters the secret entrance, the vault is revealed to be a military bunker, housing a stockpile of weapons, with Mae's book being a deciphering key for a satellite. Meanwhile, the apes become suspicious of Mae when they discover old picture books depicting humans as the once-dominant species, with apes in cages at the zoo.
As they make their way out of the bunker, the group is confronted by Proximus and his tribe who threaten to kill them, but are stopped when Mae uses a gun to kill Lightning. Proximus agrees to let Mae leave if she tells them where the other weapons are. Mae refuses and triggers the explosives against Noa's protests, flooding the bunker while the apes are still inside. As the apes climb to higher ground, Noa is pursued by Sylva, but Noa traps and drowns Sylva. When Noa and his clan escape the bunker, he is attacked by Proximus. Proximus demands that Noa kneel before him, but Noa leads his clan in summoning their eagles to attack Proximus, resulting in him falling off a cliff to his apparent death.
As Noa's clan returns to rebuild their home, Mae bids farewell to Noa, but was berated by Noa realizing the humans would never share the world with the apes. She explained that humans deserve another chance since they were once the dominant species, but Noa retorted that apes will always rebuild their homes and then questions if apes and humans can co-exist peacefully. Noa then gives Mae Raka's pendant in hope that apes and humans can coexist, which she accepted and leaves. Mae travels to a human settlement at a satellite base, which is kept quarantined from the outside world. As Mae delivers the decipher key, allowing the humans to reactivate the satellites and successfully contact another human settlement in Indiana, Noa takes Soona to look through a telescope he had found on his journey and gazes to the sky, pondering the future.
Cast and Crew
Primary Cast
Evolved Apes
- Owen Teague as Noa - A common chimpanzee falconer, a member of the Eagle Clan, and the son of Koro and Dar.
- Peter Macon as Raka - A hermit orangutan and last member of the Order of Caesar Noa meets and becomes both ally and friend.
- Lydia Peckham as Soona - A common chimpanzee, a member of the Eagle Clan and Noa's childhood friend turned romantic interest.
- Travis Jeffery[6] as Anaya - A common chimpanzee, a member of the Eagle Clan and Noa's childhood friend.
- Neil Sandilands[7] as Koro - A common chimpanzee, the leader of the Eagle Clan, Dar's husband and Noa's father.
- Kevin Durand[8] as Proximus Caesar - A chimpanzee and the iron-fisted king of the Coastal Ape Colony.
- Eka Darville[9] as Sylva - A gorilla and Proximus Caesar's chief commander.
- Sara Wiseman[10] as Dar - A common chimpanzee, matriarch of the Eagle Clan, Koro's wife and Noa's mother.
- Ras-Samuel Weld A'abzgi as Lightning - A common chimpanzee and one of Proximus Caesar's soldiers.
- Kaden Hartcher as Oda - a strong chimpanzee and member of the Eagle Clan.
- Hartcher also portrayed Rust, one of Proximus Caesar's apes who assisted Sylva and Lightning.
Humans
- Freya Allen as Mae - The last survivor of a human expedition team who joined Noa and Raka for her own interests.
- William H. Macy[11] as Trevathan - an opportunistic human who teaches human history to Proximus Caesar and fixes old human weaponry.
- Dichen Lachman[12] as Korina - a member of a human settlement living in a satellite base.
Development and Confirmed Information
Development
In October 2016, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves said that he had ideas for a fourth film in the Planet of the Apes reboot series. In mid-2017, as War was released, Reeves and co-writer Mark Bomback expressed further interest in sequels. Reeves said that Steve Zahn's character, Bad Ape, established a primate world "much larger" than just Caesar's group of apes, adding that there are apes "who grew up without the benefit of Caesar's leadership" and suggesting that conflict would arise if Caesar's apes should encounter such outsiders. Bomback felt that "there was probably only one more big chapter left to tell", explaining how Caesar "came to be this Moses figure in the Apes world". He suggested that other filmmakers might work on the sequel and that it could take place hundreds of years after War. Despite this, he clarified that there had not been conversations on a potential sequel, expressing his desire to "take a breather and let things rest a bit."
In April 2019, following its acquisition of 20th Century Fox, the Walt Disney Company announced that further Planet of the Apes films were in development. In August, it was confirmed that any future installments would be set in the same universe first established in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. In December, it was announced that Wes Ball would write and direct the film, after having previously worked with Reeves on a film adaptation of Mouse Guard. After that film was canceled by Disney following the merger, the company approached Ball on developing a new Planet of the Apes film.
In February 2020, Ball confirmed that the film would not be a reboot, instead chronicling "Caesar's legacy". [13] Joe Hartwick Jr. and David Starke were also confirmed to serve as producers. In April, it was announced that Peter Chernin, who produced the previous installments through Chernin Entertainment, would serve as executive producer. The film will be one of the company's last films before it leaves 20th Century Studios for Netflix. The next month, it was revealed that Josh Friedman would co-write the script with Ball, and that Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver would return to produce the film after doing so for the previous installments. Ball and Friedman would discuss the script through Zoom video calls, a routine which continued as the COVID-19 pandemic began. Instead of a direct sequel to War, Ball stated that the film would feel more like a follow-up to the previous films, and commented that the film could begin virtual production soon in spite of the pandemic due to the fact that much of the film contained computer-generated imagery (CGI).
In March 2022, 20th Century Studios president Steve Asbell stated that he was expecting a screenplay draft shortly, aiming for production to begin by the end of the year. By June, Oddball Entertainment and Shinbone Productions were also set to produce the film [14], while the search for the main star was underway following the script's completion the previous month. The film's title was revealed to be Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes in September 2022, with the film revealed to take place many years after the events of War. Jaffa, Silver, and Patrick Aison joined the writing team, with Ball no longer credited as screenwriter. Jason Reed and Jenno Topping were also announced as producer and executive producer, respectively, while Starke was no longer expected to serve as producer.
Filming
Principal photography began in October 2022 at Disney Studios Australia in Sydney, with funding partially provided by the Australian Government,[15] under the working title Forbidden Zone. Filming concluded on February 15, 2023.[16]
On January 12, 2024, Disney moved up the release date from May 24 to May 10th.[17]
Confirmed
- The film takes place 300 years[4] after the events of War for the Planet of the Apes.
- The main protagonist is Noa, a chimpanzee born from the Eagle Clan, a tribe that; has no connection to Caesar or the San Francisco Ape Colony at all.
- Peter Macon, Freya Allen and Kevin Durand's roles are revealed to be the wise orangutan, Raka, the human, Mae and the bonobo, Proximus Caesar.
- In an article from Entertainment Weekly, Lydia Peckham and Travis Jeffery's roles were revealed to be two new chimpanzee characters Soona and Anaya.[18]
Gallery
Promotional
.jpg "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Second International Poster (English).jpg (1,011 KB)")
Stills
Trailers and Clips
External Links
- ↑ Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes British Film Rating - bbfc (5 May 2024)
- ↑ Production Weekly unveiled upcoming project titles - Production Weekly (16 June 2022)
- ↑ fourth CE Planet of the Apes movie set production date - Twitter (29 September 2022)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes Sets Up A New Trilogy Nearly 300 Years After Caesar’s End – Empire
- ↑ Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes Trailer Breakdown: Those Darned Apes Are Back And Dirtier Than Ever - Slashfilm.com (2 November 2023)
- ↑ Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes adds five new actors - Deadline.com (25 October 2022)
- ↑ Animal Kingdom - Members.Empireonline.comm (21 December 2022)
- ↑ Kevin Durand joins cast of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes - Deadline.com (6 October 2022)
- ↑ Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Casts Jessica Jones Actor - Comicbook.com (6 October 2022)
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fgfawlflnr4rc1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1170%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D0e46dedccb8719d872c87b4f57df0881a3e53ad3
- ↑ William H. Macy Rounds Out ‘Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes’ Cast - Deadline.com (11 January 2023)
- ↑ Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' Adds 'Severance' Star Dichen Lachman - Collider.com (6 February 2023)
- ↑ https://collider.com/new-planet-of-the-apes-movie-not-a-reboot-says-director-wes-ball/
- ↑ https://www.productionweekly.com/production-weekly-issue-1303-thursday-june-16-2022-188-listings-41-pages/
- ↑ url=https://variety.com/2022/film/news/kingdom-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-shooting-australia-1235397570/
- ↑ url=https://comicbook.com/movies/news/kingdom-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-filming-wrapped-video-behind-the-scenes/
- ↑ https://variety.com/2024/film/news/kingdom-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-release-date-1235870227/
- ↑ https://ew.com/kingdom-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-sequels-wes-ball-8414548