Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Star Explains What Sets New Film Apart From Previous Installments

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes star Owen Teague suggests that the upcoming film may bridge the gap between the prequel series and the original Planet of the Apes films, at least visually. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which had a Super Bowl trailer debut on Sunday, is a sequel to 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes, the third film in this rebooted Planet of the Apes series after 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes and 2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Those three films presented a more grounded and realistic take on the Planet of the Apes concept compared to the original 1968 film and its sequels from the early 1970s. The new Planet of the Apes films also rely on modern motion capture and visual effects technology to create the ape characters instead of actors in ape costumes. While that new technology is still in use in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Teague says the world of Kingdom of the Planet of Apes may look more like that of the original Planet of the Apes movies.

“Of this most recent string of movies, this is the one that I think is starting to feel more like the originals,” Teague tells ComicBook.com. “We had Rise, Dawn, and War, which are amazing movies, but that’s a very different feel from the ’68 version. And now we’re starting to get into what that original was without being a remake or anything even remotely similar to that, but hints visually in terms of the world is beginning to look like that, which we haven’t seen before with performance capture, we haven’t seen with the CGI apes, so that’s really cool.”

Set 300 years after Caesar’s story ended in War for the Planet of the Apes, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes casts Teague as Noa, a young chimpanzee who breaks away from ape society after a brutal leader takes power. Noa ventures out searching for a better way forward for apes and humans alike. Teague says that the difference in upbringing is central to the differences in Noa and Caesar’s characters.

“Caesar was raised with humans, and so a big part of Caesar’s character is dealing with his relationship with humans, and his relationship with other apes and how similar the two species are,” Teague explains. “Noa doesn’t really have that. He’s never met a human before at the beginning of this movie, and so he doesn’t really know anything. Caesar goes into his trilogy knowing a lot and knowing more about the human world than the ape world, knowing very little about how to be a chimpanzee; he thinks he’s a human. Noa is very much a chimpanzee, and while he’s fluent in speech and all that kind of stuff, he’s still an ape, and he’s a very sheltered ape, and so I don’t know that Caesar had the kind of wonder at the world that Noa had. Noa’s primary driving thing is curiosity. I’m shaky on Cornelius’s driving motives, but I remember he’s a scientist, and I think Noa is more on that spectrum of character traits.”

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Cast and Release Date

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is set many years after the reign of Caesar. In the film, a young ape goes on a journey that will lead him to question everything he’s been taught about the past and make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.

Wes Ball directed Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes from a screenplay by Josh Friedman, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, and Patrick Aison. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes stars Owen Teague, Freya Allan, Kevin Durand, Peter Macon, and William H. Macy. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes opens in theaters on May 10th.