Don’t be fooled into thinking that the conflict brewing in War For the Planet of the Apes is strictly between human and ape.
Building on the momentum established by Rise and Dawn, Matt Reeves’ blockbuster threequel will, of course, place Caesar (Andy Serkis) on a collision course with The Colonel (Woody Harrelson), but as today’s all-new promo reveals, Caesar and his simian tribe will encounter a dangerous, newly-evolved chimp known simply as “Bad Ape” (Steve Zahn) in exactly one month’s time. It’s deemed to be a “critical moment” in the war between humanity and Apekind, and that’s before you toss in the inclusion of Amiah Miller’s Nova.
That mute little girl has cropped up in the Planet of the Apes saga before, specifically during the early ’80s when Linda Melson Harrison became one of the first humans to make contact with those radically advanced simians. As Fox’s lucrative franchise is angled as a prequel story, it’s also been confirmed that Harrison and Miller’s characters are one and the same, and the young Nova of War For the Planet of the Apes will seemingly rekindle Caesar’s sense of compassion.
Box office-wise, War For the Planet of the Apes finds itself sandwiched between Spider-Man: Homecoming and Christopher Nolan’s wartime epic Dunkirk – a strong double act by anyone’s standards – on the release calendar, so it’ll be fascinating to see how Matt Reeves’ long-awaited threequel fares. Dawn, the most recent entry in the series, stormed to $710 million worldwide, but can War reach higher still? Time will tell.
We are, at the time of writing, exactly one month away from the release of War For the Planet of the Apes – and we couldn’t be more excited. Fox and Matt Reeves’ all-star threequel has been dubbed the “final chapter” in the story of Caesar, but it seems there’s still plenty of story material leftover for additional entries into this most ambitious, visually stunning franchise. Stay tuned for more on that front as War looms closer and closer.
