Today in Shocking News You’ll Never Believe™, it turns out the director of a successful film has an idea for a sequel. Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt tells BleedingCool that he envisions a sequel, set eight years after ROTPOTA, which he describes as “Full Metal Jacket with Apes.” I know, I know, I’m duty bound to say that I hate sequels but… everything about that description sounds awesome.
…FOUR TEN!? HOLY DOG SH*T, I DIDN’T KNOW THEY STACKED BANANAS THAT HIGH! WHERE YOU FROM, PRIVATE BUBBLES! THE JUNGLE!? ONLY GIBBONS AND RHESUS FROM THE JUNGLE! DO YOU SWING FROM TREES?!
“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.”
At the end of my ‘Apes’ review, I pointed out that my least favorite part was the post-credits sequence where they crassly, blatantly (I thought) pimped a sequel. A few people emailed me and were like, “OMG, Vince, r u srs? They weren’t pimping a sequel, they were just wrapping up the story so it would transition into the storyline of the first Planet of the Apes movie!” Now, you guys can keep riding your optimism unicorns around marshmallow island using happy thoughts as currency and believing movie studios do things for artistic reasons and not money if you want to, but here on Earth, where everyone’s a dick but me, I’m pretty sure that scene was a way to set up a sequel, which the director has clearing been thinking about.
That being said… monkey spies, dude? Sign me up.