The highly underrated Planet of the Apes reboot trilogy set the bar high for what the modern-day movie franchise should be, thanks to its serialized storytelling and Andy Serkis’ brilliant performance capture and motion-capture performances as Caesar, an evolved chimp raised in captivity and later experimented on as a test subject who would lead his fellow prisoners in a revolution against their human oppressors.
However, Caesar’s story came to an end, it meant franchise could take a new direction while still recognizing the legacy of the three films that came before it. And in our interview with Owen Teague (Noa), Freya Allan (Mae), Kevin Durand (Proximus Caesar), and Peter Macon (Raka), we talk about the pressures of taking on a franchise that goes as far back as 1968 and what it was like to go to ape school.
Set many generations after the end of War for the Planet of the Apes, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes follows Noa, a young chimp of the Eagle Clan who learns that there is more to the world than what his quiet village has taught him. When ambitious bonobo king Proximus Caesar who built his kingdom by subverting Caesar’s teachings and using human technologies to enslave other clans, conquers Noa’s village, the young chimp embarks on an adventure with Raka, a wise and virtuous orangutan and Mae, a human with her own agenda, that would determine the future of ape and human kind.
Since we already hit on how Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a coming-of-age adventure, the interview focused more on what the actor’s thoughts were on being a part of a franchise that dates as far back as 1968 and what it was like to get into their characters while on a practical set and the volume. Teague and Allan spoke about building chemistry for characters that are in a precarious quid-pro-quo ape and human relationship, while Durand and Raka talked about losing themselves to the characters once they put the mo-cap suits on.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is scheduled to swing into theaters on May 17, 2024.