Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes Originally Set 100 Years After Rise

‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ was set 100 years after the events of ‘Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes’ until Matt Reeves took over as director, according to star Andy Serkis.

Watch out interview above.

Speaking to Yahoo, Serkis said in one draft of the story: “the apes had moved into the city. They were living the life, living it up, smoking e-cigarettes and partying. It was a good few hundred years [after ‘Rise’] as opposed to ten.”

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“Matt wanted to linger in Caeser’s journey a lot longer that perhaps it could of gone. He wanted to make it a Caesar-centric story and reach a point where it was still early enough to see the apes evolving. That was a crucial place that Matt dropped anchor and made the film that he wanted to make.”

Adds Reeves: “There was an interim step [between Rupert leaving and Reeves joining] where they had worked out a new outline. And the new outline, I don’t know what it was based on it, I don’t believe it was based on Rupert’s. And when they presented me that outline I didn’t really respond to it. I felt it was not enough about Caesar.

“It wasn’t really a Caesar point of view movie. It started in the post-apocalyptic world of San Francisco and the apes were a lot more articulate, much more than in ‘Rise’ and what they ended up being in ‘Dawn’. It felt like the post-apocalyptic world was very familiar… I felt like we’d seen it in so many movies.

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“That was part of the movie, but what I haven’t seen is this ape world creation. If I start with Caesar, and we make the beginning like the ‘dawn of man’ sequence from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, but make it like the dawn of intelligent apes, and really get invested in their lives emotionally… That was my pitch, I was shocked that they said ‘yes’.”

Reeves also said that by focusing on Caesar once more, it helped him map out future ‘Apes’ sequels.

“Caesar is like an ape Moses,” he said.

“[‘Dawn] feels like the start of a grand saga with many chapters that leads through him and though his children to that world. Because this world is quite different to that world.

“That feels like a cool, epic story to me. I thought that we should go back to it being Caesar’s story, because it opens up that possibility.”

Photo: 20th Century Fox