The Godfather – but with chimpanzees: on set with War for the Planet of the Apes . On an expanse of waste ground not far from Vancouver airport lies a chilling and spectacular sight: a sprawling labour camp, larger than a football stadium, where gun towers and searchlights are silhouetted against the white winter sky. Brutalist bullet- pocked buildings are daubed with slogans: Keep Fear to Yourself, Share Courage With Others; Fight Weakness Or Perish; Give Everything. The imposing concrete structure is patched here and there with wood, corrugated iron, barbed wire and fences. A stony- faced soldier plods through the grime and snow on horseback, a rifle slung over his shoulder, as the rain turns puddles into muddy lagoons. This is not the most auspicious setting for a summer blockbuster. But then the Planet of the Apes movies don’t really do levity. This rebooted series, which began with Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, is darker than the typical franchise. For the third instalment, War for the Planet of the Apes, its director, Matt Reeves, cites Akira Kurosawa’s Ran and Hidden Fortress as influences and throws in references to Apocalypse Now; the producer, Dylan Clark, mentions 2. Days Later as a touchstone. Special- effects extravaganzas the Apes films may be, with their innovative use of performance- capture technology. But ephemeral and escapist they most definitely are not. The Apes films are not only the best- reviewed blockbusters of recent years, they also take serious money – superhero money. Rise, which cost $9. Thor and Captain America. Dawn, with nearly twice the budget, took $7. The Amazing Spider- Man 2 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. If we are doing our jobs right then the films should reflect what people are experiencing today. When the 1. 96. 0s/7. You are here: Home > Upcoming T-Mobile Tuesday will offer $4The 1. 96. 8 Planet of the Apes was a schlocky yet well- regarded fantasy made timeless by one of the great twist endings in cinema. Four lacklustre sequels, followed by two television spin- off series, amounted to flogging a dead ape, and the franchise finally fizzled out in the mid- 7. The situation was not helped by Tim Burton’s listless 2. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a 2014 American science fiction film directed by Matt Reeves and written by Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. A single act of both compassion and arrogance leads to a war unlike any other -- and to the Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The Oscar-winning visual effects team that. 5th Writethru Sunday AM following Saturday Posts: 20th Century Fox's War for the Planet of the Apes is coming in around where the industry saw it yesterday with $56. In that context, a new Apes cycle was anything but a safe bet. Right before the release of Rise, its star, James Franco, even expressed concerns that the picture’s reception would be adversely affected by his presence. With Nolan’s trilogy already winding down (The Dark Knight Rises opened a year after Rise), there was a gap opening up in the market for another serious- minded origin story. Photograph: Rex. Though Rise was a hit, it still felt torn between its philosophical musings and its obligations as a wham- bam action movie. Its director, Rupert Wyatt, stepped down from directing Dawn after disagreements with the studio, and Clark brought in Reeves, who had made Cloverfield and Let Me In. We were grappling with how to get the balance right and, when Matt came on board, we set out to make something for this generation.” Reeves maintains that the current Apes films are still part of the same universe, and as such are leading inexorably towards the events of the 1. We know the end of the story, which is a great gift because then it stops being about what happens and becomes instead about how. It allows us to work through the chapters of what I like to call our Russian ape novel.”We’re looking at how the extremes of war can warp you. War for the Planet of the Apes is, as the title suggests, a full- blown combat movie, with a gruelling Po. W story thrown in for good measure. Andy Serkis returns as chimpanzee Caesar, the hero of the franchise, who finds himself in a secret labour camp where apes are being abused by a shaven- headed tyrant known only as the Colonel. I’m picking up his life as he goes along, rather than playing the same character each time. He was brought up among humans so I always thought of him as a human in an ape’s skin. La Planète des Singes, known in English as Planet of the Apes in the US and Monkey Planet in the UK, is a 1963 science fiction novel by French author Pierre Boulle. There was something very telling about Marvel’s decision this past Monday to announce to The New York Times how its Secret Empire event would end. Buy The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Read 3837 Movies & TV Reviews - Amazon.com. For this one, I studied world leaders at the beginnings and the ends of their reigns to see how their expressions changed; how their physicality gets broken down. I see Caesar as a reflective, Mandela figure – but now it’s all taking its toll on him.”“The war in this film is between humans and apes,” says Clark. At the end of Dawn, he broke one of his own tenets – . He might be an ape but he’s the most human character in this place.”Reeves calls “action” on a scene in which Caesar intervenes in the whipping of a prisoner, prompting insurrection among the other apes. Like all the actors playing apes, he is dressed top- to- toe in a grey performance- capture jumpsuit studded with reflective markers that resemble blue nipples. These enable the wizards at Weta, the New Zealand digital effects outfit that made its name with the Lord of the Rings movies, to track and digitally interpret an actor’s every twitch. Serkis is also sporting a bicycle helmet, from which a metallic arm mounted with a tiny camera extends, shooting him in constant close- up. A smattering of white dots on his face and lips, which will aid computer- animated detail, suggests a severe case of correction- fluid chickenpox. Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Photograph: Allstar/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. I’ll cut the whole film together first without any special effects because they’re so costly,” says Reeves. It has to work on its own terms with the performances before we think about the digital rendering.” Woody Harrelson, who plays the Colonel, seems amused by the whole process. With some of these sci- fi things, there’s just no way they could ever happen. But it’s amazing how emotional this is. You really care about Caesar and his family.” Clark thinks the secret lies in the classicism of the storytelling. If you were to go out and remake The Godfather, people would say: . The film is finished and it’s a knockout: dramatically uncompromising, visually ravishing and with an air of grim finality (though the director confirms there will be more episodes, which he hopes to be involved in). Especially striking is the prescience of the film in both its detail – the Colonel is overseeing construction of a wall to separate apes from humans – and its infernal tone. Obviously now it relates strongly to current events. Hopefully there’s a timelessness to the themes.“We’re looking at how the extremes of war can warp you and create a struggle where it becomes harder to empathise with others. The film comments, as all war films do, on the flawed aspects of our nature that make us feel we’re not connected – that we can destroy each other.”Harrelson agrees that War is a film for its time.
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