Matt Reeves to direct "War for the Planet of the Apes"

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They were direct sequels and while they take some pretty big leaps tell a story with a clear through line.

I should've been clearer. I do no expect the prequel series to lead up to what happens in Beneath. I feel that, not only is it a weak ending, it leads to a timeline where Caesar and the ALZ virus aren't canon. So in my head they didn't happen.
 
I've never paid attention enough to the second one to even comprehend what's going on with those ****ing mutants.
 
Current ‘Planet Of The Apes’ Series Might Not Be Just A Trilogy
Caesar. Love. Sequels.
kevin p. sullivan said:
“It might be three films,” Serkis said. “It could be four. It could be five. Who knows? The journey will continue. It might not necessarily be summarized or completely fulfilled in this next one. The point being, eventually we know that we’re going to end up back at ‘The Planet of the Apes,’ but whether it’s this film or not, I don’t know.”
"APES LIVE! SEQUEL REQUIRED!"
 
I've never paid attention enough to the second one to even comprehend what's going on with those ****ing mutants.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
With Planet of the Apes breaking box-office records across the country, producers Richard D. Zanuck, Mort Abrahams and Arthur P. Jacobs met in Zanuck's office. Abrahams recalls: "'Planet' had been doing extremely well and we were talking, patting ourselves on the back, and giving Dick credit for putting his neck on the line and so forth. Arthur, Stan Hough [an executive production manager at Fox, later producer on the 'Apes TV series] and I left Dick's office and walked downstairs. As we were walking across the lot, Stan said, 'Why don't you do a sequel?' And I said, 'You've got to be kidding-how?' He said, 'You think about it.' Later, I got a flash of an idea and went into Arthur's office and said, 'Listen, I got this crazy idea about how to do a sequel...'" Hough's suggestion unleashed a flood of possible follow-ups, notably from Rod Serling and Pierre Boulle, yet coming up with a viable script for the sequel as shocking as that of the first movie proved extremely difficult.

Rod Serling Treatments

Rod Serling, original screen writer on the first movie, devised the first idea for a sequel. Taylor and Nova take off to the dark, unexplored part of the planet. Eventually, they would discover the remnants of human city, some weapons, and an old airplane which he uses to fight off the apes - half the film would concern Taylor's battle with the apes who follow him. When the apes have him cornered, all hope looks lost, but a second spacecraft containing (human) astronauts from the past arrives and stops them. Taylor has the opportunity to return to his own time, but chooses a woman astronaut from the ship’s crew as his mate and decides to stay behind in order to rebuild humanity on the planet of the apes.

In April 1968 Abrahams wrote to Serling saying that he thought the treatment was missing the original's visual shock, as well as a shocking climax like the first film. He felt that the sequel should begin with an equivalent of the Statue of Liberty scene and build the story around it. Serling supplied two alternative concepts over the next month. In the first concept, Taylor and Nova discover another spaceship intact and travel either forward or backwards in time to a new, bizarre but unrelated adventure, which would open up "a whole raft of possibilities". The second concept also had Taylor finding a spacecraft, eluding the apes for most of the film and taking off with a handful of intelligent humans. Together, they discover another civilized planet and land, unaware that it is also populated by apes (an idea drawn from Boulle's original novel). Both of Serling's scenarios were rejected.

Interviewed by Marvel Comics in 1974, Serling described a simpler sequence of events concerning his suggestions for the movie: "Arthur offered it to me from London and I remember spending $200 on a phone conversation about what we'd do with it. We literally got into the hydrogen bomb and the resurgence of civilization over the apes and we very much plugged the concept of the ape's desperate fear of the humans. Because the humans repeated what they'd done before which, essentially, was to wreck the earth. As it turned out, I couldn't do the script when Arthur wanted it done. I was on another assignment. So I didn't have the remotest connection with the approach Jacobs eventually went with.
While it received mixed critical notices, Beneath the Planet of the Apes grossed nearly as much as Planet of the Apes and delighted audiences worldwide. Shortly thereafter, in England, writer Paul Dehn received a simple telegram: "APES LIVE! SEQUEL REQUIRED!" It was only a short period of time before preliminary discussions began on episode three, Secret of the Planet of the Apes (eventually renamed Escape from the Planet of the Apes).
 
i agree.

3 movies is enough for Caesar. and Serkis can play other characters with the motion capture technology.
 
I wouldn't mind if the next trilogy revolves around Caesar's son. The next movie could be a passing of the torch between Caesar and his son and that could introduce the next trilogy.
 
I would like them to have more interesting human characters too.
 
i agree.

3 movies is enough for Caesar. and Serkis can play other characters with the motion capture technology.

Exactly. The great situation they are in is that they can retire the characters as needed without losing the performers. I hope Kebbel is back for the sequel even if he's playing a different character.
 
I'd prefer they do three and then jump all the way ahead to the period of the original.
 
No, I've seen the original TWICE already, so I'm in no hurry to get to it again. Plus, all this buildup/context is really interesting.
 
I'd like to see a film well in between where they are now and the Heston time period.

Maybe 1/2 way between. Say a thousand years or so. No talking humans left. The entire cast is apes.
 
I'd accept that.
 
They need to bring Koba back in this one, only as an undead tricked out with homebrewed post-apoc cyborg parts.
 
Oh you probably saw this was bumped and thought there was news. I'm sorry.
 
YOU ****ER!!!! :argh:
 
so now what? where can the story go from here? does it start right away, or is it another years-long gap in the saga?
 
I wonder if Jason Clarke and Co. will return or if they'll do another lead recast.
 
I don't think they've ever carried the human lead character from one film to the next. Even with Heston, he had only a minor role in the second movie.
 
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