Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Director Confirms Sequel's Timeline

The last entry in the Planet of the Apes franchise, War for the Planet of the Apes, landed in theaters back in 2017, though according to director of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Wes Ball, the narrative timeline within the franchise has undergone a more significant passage of time. The filmmaker didn't specify exactly how much time had passed, though he noted that the ape community had undergone substantial cultural development from what we last saw in the most recent entry. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is currently slated to hit theaters on May 24, 2024.

"I wanted to do a big leap forward in time," Ball confirmed with Empire Magazine. "It's significant enough that Caesar is still a spirit in the movie, but most of his living relatives are not in this picture. If the last three movies were the Stone Age, here we get to see what happens when they enter the Bronze Age." 

The new movie is described, "Director Wes Ball breathes new life into the global, epic franchise set several generations in the future following Caesar's reign, in which apes are the dominant species living harmoniously and humans have been reduced to living in the shadows. As a new tyrannical ape leader builds his empire, one young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question all that he has known about the past and to make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike."

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes stars Owen Teague (IT), Freya Allan (The Witcher), Kevin Durand (Locke & Key), Peter Macon (Shameless), and William H. Macy (Fargo).

While the previous trilogy of Apes films served somewhat as an origin story for the long-running franchise, Ball explained how he's heightening the adventure to more epic proportions.

"When I first started on it, I said, 'I feel like Apes needs a little bit of Star Wars,'" Ball admitted. "It's all still very grounded in reality, but it is essentially a quest narrative. Our main character -- the young, impressionable Noa [Teague] -- meets characters along the way and becomes awakened as he winds up in a place that will test him, and he ultimately becomes his true self."

He added, "We haven't kiddified it, or Disney-fied it, if I'm allowed to say that! ... But we have brought a younger spirit to it."

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is slated to hit theaters on May 24, 2024.

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