Monkey Business: Is next PLANET OF THE APES another reboot or evolution?

Over the years there have been various incarnations of the Planet of the Apes concept – originally inspired by the books by Pierre Boulle. His 1963 novel, La Planète des singes, was published as Planet of the Apes in the U.S. and with the Monkey Planet moniker in the UK.

In 1968, the big Hollywood film adaptation arrived to critical acclaim (starring Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter) and it was followed by 1970’s Beneath the Planet of the Apes, 1971’s Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes in 1972, and Battle for the Planet of the Apes in 1973. The sequels were popular but not as critically well-received.

Though there spawning a live-action television series in 1974 and an animated series in 1975, efforts to continue the film-franchise in some way floundered and it would not be until 2001 and a totally different vision of the central story was directed by Tim Burton (with a cast including Mark Wahlber, Tim Roth, Helena Bonhan Carter, Michael Clarke Duncan, Kris Kristofferson, Estelle Warren and Paul Giamatti). It was deemed an interesting, quirky film but though financially successful, it didn’t connect with audiences as well as hoped and the potential sequel never transpired.

Once again the concept was rebooted. The new films began in 2011 with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, directed by Rupert Wyatt with cutting-edge motion-capture rather than the prosthetics used to a bigger extent in the previous features.  Rather than have the original idea of astronauts landing on a planet where society is already ruled by apes, the film sought to tell the origins of the events that would eventually lead that way. The film starred James Franco, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox, Tom Felton with Andy Serkis providing the usual quality of motion-capture scenes and characters – something he would continue to do through playing ‘Caesar’ in subsequent films. It would be followed by Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in 2014 (but set ten years after the film with a mainly new cast including  Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Toby Kebbell and Kodi Smit-McPhee. War for the Planet of the Apes was released in 2017.  Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was a self-contained story in the same continuity and released in 2024. It was expected that a continuation of the latest mythology would see a new chapter hitting screens in 2027.

However, it looks as if that might have changed. Though there’s no direct news on the next film in that sequence being formally cancelled, there is now news that Matt Shakman (who most recently directed Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps) has been hired to direct a new chapter. Josh Friedman, who co-wrote First Steps and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, will write the new script but rumours suggest is yet another wholesale reboot rather than the anticipated sequel.

It will be interesting to see if this is a wholesale reinvention of the franchise/mythology or whether there is some connective tissue remaining with a change of emphasis, perhaps introducing the original astronaut-aspect that the latest chapters abandoned – but it certainly does not appear to be what was originally planned.