Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes director Wes Ball has addressed the impact the original ape hero Caesar has on the films new characters while teasing a mysterious connection with his new protagonist, Noa.
In an interview with ScreenRant, Ball spoke about the life of the apes decades after 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes where Caesar (Andy Serkis) led a rebellion against the human Alpha-Omega mercenaries. Long since passed on, Caesar’s teachings have different meanings to Kingdom’s Noa (Owen Teague), the lead villain Proximus (Kevin Durand), and the orangutan Raka (Peter Macon).
“Raka, I think, even if he’s not quite right all the time, he really understands what Caesar stood for. What ape should aspire to become,” Ball said. “Proximus has wielded Caesar’s legacy as a weapon to steer other apes in a particular direction. I think it’s an interesting thing for Noa as this kind of blank slate who doesn’t know who Caesar is, to interpret both these ideas of Caesar, who he was, and how he carries Caesar’s torch forward into the future. It’ll be fun to play with.”
“There’s even this little thing where, spiritually, there’s a lot of connections to Caesar through Noa. He’s a chimpanzee, destiny gave him the same scar right here [on his chest]. As you see in the movie, that same birthmark that Caesar had which some people caught in the trailer. ‘He’s Caesar!’ He’s not. There’s destiny at foot here. There’s something mythic about it all. So even the very first frame of the movie and the last frame of the movie is very similar. So we tried to play with that kind of stuff.”
What happens in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes?
The official synopsis reads: “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.”
Owen Teague headlines the latest Apes movie alongside Freya Allan (The Witcher), Peter Macon (The Orville), Eka Darville (Marvel’s Jessica Jones), Kevin Durand (Swamp Thing), Travis Jeffery (Preacher), Neil Sandilands (The Flash), Sara Wiseman (Power Rangers Dino Fury), Lydia Peckham (Cowboy Bebop), Ras-Samuel Welda’abzgi (The Clearing), William H. Macy (Mystery Men), and Dichen Lachman (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.).
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is scheduled for release in theaters on May 24.
