Title Of Next Planet Of The Apes Movie Announced

20th Century Fox’s ‘Planet of the Apes’ revival is set to become a trilogy - and now we know what the title of that third film will be (and along with it we might have some idea about where it’ll be headed plot-wise).

2011′s ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ successfully brought the series back with unexpected sophistication and panache, whilst 2014′s ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ was arguably even better.

Now, Collider reports that ‘Dawn’ director Matt Reeves will return to helm ‘War of the Planet of the Apes.’

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Having ‘War’ right there in the title should leave us in little doubt that the bloody conflict between apes and humans which began in ‘Dawn’ is set to escalate even further.

According to Reeves, this was always the plan - and initially the director had intended for the final scenes of ‘Dawn’ to go further toward indicating all-out warfare:

“We actually did have an ending that went one step further, and I realized late in the game, ‘Wait a minute. I don’t want us to be boxed in in this way. I think we should be left with a more open—knowing that we were going to figure out what the next story is—I didn’t want to in a way narrow our options.’ I wanted to open them up.

“What was really most important was to leave you in that emotional space with Caesar (Andy Serkis), which is the ending of the movie that you’ve seen, and know that the future is coming, but not already be at that future. Because the moment is really about the moment that’s past.

“It could have been the planet of the humans and the apes, and that parting between Caesar and Malcolm (Jason Clarke) is a very emotional moment to me, and I didn’t want something that distracted and became something else.”

Reeves goes on to hint that ‘War’ will see Serkis’ super-intelligent ape Caesar become “the seminal figure for ape history. [It’s] like myth ascension, him becoming the ape Moses, for lack of a better sort of character to model him after.”

‘War of the Planet of the Apes’ will wind up being the ninth film made in the series which Fox launched way back in 1968 with the enduring sci-fi classic ‘Planet of the Apes’ starring Charlton Heston, adapted from Pierre Boulle’s novel.

The initial franchise endured with 1970′s ‘Beneath the Planet of the Apes,’ 1971′s ‘Escape from the Planet of the Apes,’ 1972′s ‘Conquest of the Planet of the Apes,’ and finally 1973′s ‘Battle for the Planet of the Apes.’

Two TV shows followed, one live-action and one animated. The franchise was brought back to the big screen with Tim Burton’s ambitious but deeply flawed 2001 reboot - before 2011′s ‘Rise’ at last brought the franchise back to its full powers.

‘War of the Planet of the Apes’ is scheduled to hit screens on 14 July 2017.

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Picture Credit: 20th Century Fox