“War for the Planet of the Apes” arrives this summer, marking the third chapter in the blockbuster franchise. Matt Reeves (“Cloverfield“) returns after directing the critical and commercial success “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” which grossed over $700 million and paved the way for the next film.
As opposed to “running like maniacs” to make ‘Dawn,’ Reeves told EW recently that the studio “actually gave us time.” Screenwriter Mark Bomback, who also worked on ‘Dawn,’ teamd up again with Reeves, and they watched all the previous ‘Apes’ films, but also sought inspiration from classic films like “Bridge on the River Kwai,” “The Great Escape,” “Ben-Hur,” “The Ten Commandments,” and “The Outlaw Josey Wales.”
“Really, it almost primarily is about the war within Ceasar. Because you know in the last film Koba basically started the war because he couldn’t bare the idea of living side by side with his captors and he’d seen too much horrors through their hands,” Reeves explained. “And in this film Andy [Serkis]’s character is completely haunted by what happened, by having had to kill Koba and the idea that maybe the war could have been averted. But as events escalate, he ends up being wounded so desperately by the losses among the apes that he starts to feel the kind of hatred that Koba feels and the war within his heart is his humanity. Will he be able to transcend or will he fall like Koba did?”
“War for the Planet of the Apes” opens on July 14th.
