The timeline of the Planet Of The Apes franchise is not what one would call straightforward. Beneath The Planet Of The Apes is a direct sequel to the original Planet Of The Apes, but it ends with the Earth literally exploding, and then Escape From The Planet Of The Apes reveals that two characters were able to travel back in time prior to the explosion – which then sets up the events that follow in Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes and Battle For The Planet Of The Apes. Meanwhile, the movies with Andy Serkis a.k.a. the Caesar Trilogy are semi-remakes of those middle chapters, but also interpretable as prequels to the original.
If you’re a fan of this franchise, part of the fun of it all is untangling the continuity – but for Wes Ball, the director of the new film Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes, the name of the game was simplification. Last week, I spoke with the filmmaker during the movie’s Los Angeles press day, and when I asked if he considered all of the aforementioned titles to be in canon, he explained his take on the matter:
Truthfully for me, what was on my plate when we were thinking about this thing was the previous three movies, the Caesar Trilogy, and the '68 original. Those were in my sights, really. Everything else is... which I think is what interesting about this franchise. It's always been kind of loosely connected. It's never been so rigid, unlike other franchises, that if you change one little thing, [it makes people go] 'What!?' You could kind of reinvent, you could kind of have some freedom to play a little bit. It's loose.
Part of what aids that looseness in the Planet Of The Apes franchise are leaps in time. The events of each movie don’t pick up immediately after the previous chapter, and it’s left partially to the audience’s imagination to understand how the in-canon world has changed. This is certainly the case with Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes, which is firmly canonical with War For The Planet Of The Apes but set “several generation later.”
As “Before” and “After” guardrails for the new blockbuster, 1968’s Planet Of The Apes and the Caesar trilogy provided material to build on that wasn’t creatively restricting. At the same time, Wes Ball explained that some of the DNA from the original sequels is in the film. The director continued, saying,
As long as I feel like we stuck to those pillars, I feel like we were in good shape. We could belong to the franchise in a way. And you see lots of echoes throughout the movie. You kind of see some Beneath [The Planet Of The Apes] in there. You kind of see some Conquest [Of The Planet Of The Apes] in there. But yeah, that's how it goes. But also, it depends on how you think about time travel movies anyway. Because the fact they went back and maybe we haven't gotten to that point yet.
That’s actually how I prefer to look at the Planet Of The Apes continuity personally: the time travel in Escape From The Planet Of The Apes establishes a separate timeline from the franchise’s seminal film instead of creating a loop. Meanwhile, the Caesar Trilogy and Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (which is hopefully going launch its own trilogy) is a depiction of the original timeline that will eventually lead to the events in the original.
The new movie doesn’t provide any firm answers as to whether or not this is the proper way to interpret the Planet Of The Apes franchise, but that’s in part because Wes Ball wants fans to be talking about this kind of stuff on their way out of the theater:
It’s something for other people to go and debate on, which is great. They can go out in the parking lot and debate all this stuff.
With a cast including franchise-newcomers Owen Teague, Freya Allan, Kevin Durand, Peter Macon and more, Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes is already building big hype in advance of its release, and it will be in theaters everywhere this Friday, May 10.
