Director Matt Shackman is leaving the Marvel Cinematic Universe behind and heading to the Planet of the Apes. Via Deadline, we’ve learned that the director behind The Fantastic Four: First Steps and WandaVision will helm a new Planet of the Apes film for Twentieth Century Studios. Writing the script for the sequel is Josh Friedman, who wrote the previous installment Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Other writing credits for him include the two recent Avatar sequels. Interestingly, the report suggests that this new film won’t be a direct continuation of the previous one. It will instead go in a new story direction.
Planet of the Apes has been a long-running franchise since 1968. The original film was a massive success, leading to four direct sequels and a short-lived television series. A revival languished in development hell for decades before Tim Burton relaunched the franchise with a big-budget remake in 2001. That film was critically reviled but made decent money. Ten years later, a prequel film, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, arrived to surprise success. That became the first in a trilogy focusing on Andy Serkis’ talking simian character Caesar. Audiences then followed Caesar in two Matt Reeves-directed sequels, 2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes.
2024’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, directed by Wes Ball, took place generations after Caesar’s time. In this era, apes have become the dominant species on Earth. Even though that was a relaunch of sorts, it still took place within the same continuity as the previous trilogy. Even if this new Planet of the Apes film from Matt Shakman features new characters, we suspect it will take place in the same universe. The question becomes, how much further into the future will this new installment take us? Might we see apes utilizing technology in much the same way they did in the original film? We’re curious to find out. Given how long the special effects take for these films, we expect the earliest we’d see this one arrive would be 2028.