Posted in: 20th Century Studios, Movies | Tagged: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Owen Teague, wes ball

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes star Owen Teague has some thoughts about where the humans and the apes could go in a potential sequel.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes looks like it will walk away with a good opening weekend, which means the hopes of this becoming a new trilogy are becoming more and more likely to come true. Everyone involved has been pretty upfront about wanting to do more films in this franchise, and star Owen Teague explained to Entertainment Weekly, “I hope the chances [of returning] are big. More than anything, I want to get to do another one of these because it was so much fun. I think it’s a really special movie and character — I’m quite attached to Noa.” The movie sets up some interesting new dynamics between the apes and the humans at the end, but to get into that, we will have to add a SPOILER WARNING. If you don’t want to know how this movie ends, don’t look beyond this image and check it out yourself. It’s a pretty good time.

Where The World Goes From Here

By the end of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, everything we think we know about the humans left on Earth has fundamentally changed. We thought they were dumbed down and mute, with Mae (Freya Allan) being the exception, not the rule, but we discovered that the virus didn’t impact some humans. Proximus (Kevin Durand) wants to enter a vault that was closed when everything went to hell, believing the next stage of evolution for the apes lies within that vault. Mae also wants to get into the vault and retrieve, as she explains it to Noa, the thing that could help humans learn to speak again. Noa wants to go home with his clan, and Mae is beginning to soften his views on humans, thinking maybe the teachings of Caesar, where apes and humans live together, that Raka (Peter Macon) told him earlier could be possible. However, the decisions Mae ultimately makes have Noa not trusting her.

In the end, we find Noa returning to his village, following his defeat of Proximus, and trying to start a new life with his new knowledge about the world, and we see Mae giving the disc she took from the vault to a group of humans living underground. The satellites are up and running with the disc, and humanity can communicate again. Now we know multiple groups of humans survived unaffected by the virus, maintaining their intelligence and ability to speak. Mae has made it clear that humans want to return to the way things were, and Noa has made it clear that the apes won’t quietly return to the cage. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Teague was asked what he hopes to see in another film following Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

“In terms of what I hope to see — God, it’s hard to know where things are going to go,” he admits with a laugh. “It depends on what the writers want to do and what story we want to tell next. But I think Noa has figured out who he is in this movie, and he’s figured out what’s going on in the world. Now he has to figure out what kind of leader he wants to be, and that’s going to depend on what the humans do and how they approach this fundamental issue, which is, can apes and humans live together?”

Another thing they have been very open about when promoting Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the journey that Noa will go on, not just in that first film but in any story that might follow. Teague explains that he doesn’t “know what the humans are going to do, but I think it’s going to be interesting to see Noa get pushed and have to deal with the truth of our history.” While humanity is reconnecting, the apes are also learning the history that has been forgotten since Caesar died, and Teague isn’t sure how Noa will handle those revelations. “I don’t know how he’ll react. There’s a couple ways we could go. It might be that Noa steps up — he’s got this beautiful hope within him, and maybe he’ll follow that. Or maybe Proximus is a louder voice and has influenced Noa to go down a darker road. I don’t really know, but where he sits right now, there’s a lot of different ways that things could go, which is exciting. I can’t wait to see what happens with him.”

It’s unclear how long Disney and 20th Century Studios will wait to greenlight another movie should they decide to do that. Director Wes Ball has already said he wants to return to do another Planet of the Apes film and direct the upcoming Legend of Zelda film. Actors usually sign contracts for multiple films right out of the gate, so it might be just waiting for the ink to dry on a few more papers, really waiting to see how the numbers are in the next week or two, and figuring out the schedule of any returning cast members.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes: Release Date, Summary, Cast List

A new entry in the studio’s global epic franchise, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, was released exclusively in theaters nationwide on May 10, 2024.

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 is directed by Wes Ball (the Maze Runner trilogy) and stars Owen Teague (IT), Freya Allan (The Witcher), Kevin Durand (Locke & Key), Peter Macon (Shameless), and William H. Macy (Fargo). The screenplay is by Josh Friedman (War of the Worlds) and Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver (Avatar: The Way of Water) and Patrick Aison (Prey), based on characters created by Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver, and the producers are Wes Ball, Joe Hartwick, Jr. (The Maze Runner), Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Jason Reed (Mulan), with Peter Chernin (the Planet of the Apes trilogy) and Jenno Topping (Ford v. Ferrari) serving as executive producers.

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