Well that didn’t take long! Just last week we reported that Rupert Wyatt had walked out as the director to the sequel to ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ and now 20th Century Fox has found his replacement. It’s been confirmed that Matt Reeves is now finalizing a deal to direct ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’.
Granted, Reeves was at the top of the short list that included other notable directors such as Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and Guillermo del Toro so the news shouldn’t come as too much of surprise. Now that he’s passed on Warner Bros.’ ‘Twilight Zone’ film, his scheduled seems to have cleared for him to take the helm on this sequel.
If you recall, Wyatt reportedly left the project due to concerns with Fox’s timeline for the film and the announcement of its release date. He felt that the set release date would not allow him adequate time to give the film the proper attention and bowed out, similar to what Gary Ross did with ‘The Hunger Games.’
Luckily the film already has a script that was written by Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver (with a few tweaks by Scott Z. Burns) that both the studio and its producer, Chernin Entertainment, are happy with and the project can now move forward. While specifics of the plot remains a secret, it has been said that ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ will pick up where the last film left off with the ape-carried virus beginning to spread throughout humanity leading to a global pandemic. With Andy Serkis already signed on to reprise his role as Caesar, it can also be expected that movie goers will see the next step in Caesar’s evolution unfold.
No word yet if co-stars James Franco or Freida Pinto will also be returning but now that Fox has a director for the project, expect to hear more news in the coming months.
‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ is set to hit theaters on May 23, 2014.
Source: Deadline
