Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes Is The First Of A Trilogy

If you enjoyed Rise of the Planet of the Apes, then you’re in luck. Entertainment Weekly recently interviewed the film’s writers, Rick Jaffa and Amada Silver. While discussing possible ideas for a sequel, the writers let it slip that the film is actually the first in a planned trilogy.

Silver: I’m touching wood, because I’m superstitious! We definitely have ideas for where the sequel — plural, where the sequels — would take us. And those were kind of built into –
Jaffa: — the construction of the narrative already. There hasn’t been an official discussion yet about a sequel, because I think everyone still doesn’t want to jinx where we are. But we definitely have ideas.
Silver: When we started this, we knew that this movie would stand on its own, and we designed it that way. But if it didn’t stand on its own, we pictured a trilogy that would start with this movie.

Director Rupert Wyatt spoke out about the sequel as well and had some interesting ideas for where it could go.

“There’s so much we could do… The ideas I’ve had are all sorts of things, ranging from Full Metal Jacket with apes… you could start this story again eight years from where we left off, the next generation of apes, those that have come from our protagonists, perhaps going in to a conflict with humans and showing real fear, in the same way as going into war for young soldiers in this day and age, telling their story.

Or how apes are taking over cities, and being moved into human environments and having to interact with them and deal with things that are part of our culture and understand and evolve through them. Spies that are in the employ of the apes, working against humans and humans maybe existing underground, because that’s a way they can avoid the virus, coming up above ground wearing gas masks, and maybe that’s what dehumanises them.”

While I didn’t exactly love Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I’d be willing to give the sequel a chance. I’d even be fine with a trilogy. Future films in the series would be able to show what the first film didn’t, apes taking over Earth. That’s something I was really hoping to see in the first film and unfortunately, we only got a very brief glimpse of it.

I wanted to see humans falling to the apes and the balance of power slowly starting to shift, in favor of the apes. I wanted to see exactly how our planet fell to the Apes. It’s hinted at in Rise of the Planet of the Apes but there’s not enough of a focus on it. That being said, if it really is the first film in a planned trilogy then it’s understandable. You can’t expect them to give everything away.

Despite the problems I had with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I’ll remain optimistic in regards to the sequel. It sounds like they’re going to be showing exactly what I was hoping to see in the first film and if that’s the case, I think I’ll enjoy it a lot more.