Director Wes Ball has a pretty daunting task ahead of him– following up 20th Century Fox’s successful ‘Planet of the Apes’ trilogy with a new ‘Apes’ film.  But Ball assures fans that he is confident that he can do justice to this brand.  As he wrote on Twitter:

He followed that up by saying:

 

Wes Ball
20th Century Fox

‘Planet of the Apes’ originated as a French science fiction novel,  ‘La Planète des singes’, written by Pierre Boulle, published in 1963.  The first movie, simply entitled ‘Planet of the Apes’ was released in 1968 and was an immediate sensation, with its surprise twist ending — this planet ruled by intelligent apes was actually Earth in the aftermath of a nuclear war.  Four sequels were made, as well as an animated series, and a live-action TV series.

 

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Tim Burton directed a reboot movie, which was released in 2001, but reception to that was poor.  20th Century Fox struggled for years to try and come up with either a sequel or a reboot, with many writers, directors, and producers coming and going.  Finally, in 2011, Rupert Wyatt’s ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes‘ was released to critical acclaim and box office success.  That was followed in 2014 by ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes‘ and in 2017 by ‘War for the Planet of the Apes‘, both of which were directed by Matt Reeves.  They were also both critical and financial successes and the three modern ‘Apes’ movies made over $1 billion combined.

It remains to be seen how Ball plans to follow them up, but it sounds as though he will be bouncing ideas off of some of the people involved with the prior ‘Apes’ movies, so that should help fans rest assured that the brand is in good hands.  ‘Planet of the Apes’ was one of several franchises that Disney claimed after buying 20th Century Fox.

Ball is best known for directing the ‘Maze Runner’ series of movies, which were also released by Fox.

Are you looking forward to more ‘Planet of the Apes’ movies?