Wes Ball (‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ director) describes the ‘bold’ swing of his 300-year time jump
Director Wes Ball refers to “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” the latest installment in the re-energized franchise, as something of a “soft reboot.” As a fan of both the original 1968 film with Charlton Heston as well as the more recent trilogy helmed by Matt Reeves, Ball was careful to hold on to the goodwill that this story already possessed. His approach then was to start a new chapter in an unexplored time period of this apocalyptic story. “I started thinking about it as, is there a way to almost bridge those two worlds together where you could start that step,” he explains, “that march towards that Charlton Heston reality.” Watch the video interview above.
“Kingdom” is set some 300 years after the death of ape leader Caesar (Andy Serkis) in “War for the Planet of the Apes.” The primates have developed a full spoken language, robust cultures, and Caesar is simply a legend. “It lets us kind of reset the movie,” describes Ball of the time jump, “We can change tones. We can change whole new characters. It’s a bold kind of swing, of course. But at the same time, the foundation of it is built on this idea of who Caesar was and what he meant to the apes.”
The evolution of ape culture is evident in the film’s opening sequence: a group of young monkeys make a daring climb up decaying skyscrapers in search of an eagle egg. This rite of passage was one of the first ideas Ball had for the movie. “It sets off, immediately, this kind younger adventure that we’re going on,” notes the director, highlighting the coming of age theme found throughout his story.
In order to bring the remarkably expressive apes to life, Ball continued to employ the previous trilogy’s impressive combination of motion capture performances and highly detailed digital artistry. “It’s really a handshake between the artists,” he reveals. “We picked actors who would embrace this very strange form of making a movie. This is not for just any actor,” he continues
Although there is a technical challenge to the unconventional shooting process, Ball admits that his bigger hurdle was in post production. “I’m trying to choose the selects…and trying to imagine what they’re going to look like as an ape,” he describes. Looking through footage of actors in motion capture suits and face cameras feels quite different than the finished product with a fully realized digital primate on screen. Ball found himself often slowing the pacing of the final edit due to the sheer beauty and impact of the final version of the character. “I need a chance to just immerse myself into this impossibility of an ape talking on screen,” says the director each time he wanted to linger on an ape’s face. “So it changes things a lot and the choices that you make…it was an incredibly fun challenge both creatively and technically.”
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