Planet of the Apes 9-Movie Saga Now Planned, Kingdom Box Office Bodes Well for Sequels

Summary

• The
  Planet of the Apes
  franchise is still going strong with the success of
  Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
  at the global box office.
• Plans for a nine-movie saga are in place, with the potential for a new trilogy to be launched following the success of
  Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
  .
• Director Wes Ball has promised he will not “go into prep” on any sequels until there is a finished script.

There is still a lot of life left in the long-running Planet of the Apes franchise, as most recent outing Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes garners $129 million at the global box office. Which should bode well for the studio’s plans for a nine-movie saga. According to THR, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes brought in $56.5 million domestically and $72.5 million overseas against its $160 million production budget, giving it the second-best debut of the series in North America.

In more good news, the Planet of the Apes sequel/prequel landed at the higher end of projections, with the report revealing that the movie has excelled among “both younger and older males, as well as an ethnically diverse audience.”

Directed by Wes Ball and written by Josh Friedman, 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), and picks up decades after the most recent trilogy, which ended with 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes.

“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 the Fourth Movie in a Planned 9-Movie Saga

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

4/5

Set several years after the events of War for the Planet of the Apes, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the next installment in the Apes saga. Ape clans have taken up residence in the oasis that Caesar sought to colonize, but humans have reverted to their animalistic nature in their absence. Now battling between enslavement and freedom, outliers in the Ape clans will take sides in a newly burgeoning society.

Release Date May 10, 2024

Studio Disney Studios Australia, Twentieth Century Fox

Tagline No One Can Stop the Reign

Thankfully for the studio, there is clearly no franchise fatigue when it comes to Planet of the Apes, with Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa now planning a nine-movie saga.

“When you first came up with this idea, the Apes franchise way back, you saw nine movies. We thought, ‘This is crazy ambitious.’ But here we are. We’re at four,” Silver says.

Jaffa adds, “I don’t know if we’ll make it to nine. I would love it. We’ve spoken to not just Wes and Josh and [producer] Joe Hartwick Jr., but to Steve Asbell and Scott Aversano at 20th about what these next movies can be.”

Related Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ Ending Sets Up a Sequel Perfectly Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes sets up a new trilogy by calling back to the franchise’s past to set up the future. Here is the ending, explained.

For his part, director Wes Ball has envisioned that Kingdomwill launch a new trilogy, with the filmmaker saying, “I don’t want to say we end on a cliffhanger, but we certainly end on a new door opening essentially that will allow us to keep going if we want it to, if we were successful enough to.”

The director has also promised that he will not rush into anything following the release of Kingdom, explaining that he will not “go into prep” on any sequels until there is a finished script that he’s satisfied with.

“It’ll take as long as it takes. Fortunately, because this franchise is important to the studio, we’ll get it right like we did this one, took our time and got it right. Hopefully, people think that. It takes time, the development itself, and my big thing is I do not want to go into prep when the script is not done. I’ve had to do that in the past. Nothing good comes from that.”

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
is out now in theaters.

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