Dawn of The Planet of The Apes is shaping up to be one of the surprises of the summer, apes trading comic books and all. And a lot goes into these movies that we may not necessarily appreciate, which is what makes these exclusive concept art images so fascinating.
What’s somewhat unusual here is how closely the production art reflected the ultimate design. Take, for example, this image:
And the setting from this clip in the movie:
Or, for that matter, this concept of the ape’s treehouse village:
With the opening of the first trailer:
The art book itself, called Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes: The Art Of The Films courtesy of Titan, is packed full of interesting tidbits like this. It’s the usual gorgeous job the publisher does on these books, but Matt Hurwitz gets unusually in-depth; this goes well beyond concept art and into production stills, effects work, and more, and it’s surprisingly honest about the difficulty involved in making a movie about superintelligent apes wrecking San Francisco more than just a dumb spectacle. Plus, it has gorgeous images like this:
The book is out July 8th, and we can see an ape dual-wielding assault rifles on horseback July 11th.