War for the Planet of the Apes is a 2017 American science fiction action film directed by Matt Reeves, who co-wrote it with Mark Bomback. The sequel to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), it is the third installment in the Planet of the Apes reboot film series and the ninth film overall. It stars Andy Serkis alongside Woody Harrelson and Steve Zahn. The film concludes the story of Caesar as he sets out to avenge those he has lost in the war between apes and humans.
Development for War for the Planet of the Apes began in January 2014, after 20th Century Fox viewed Reeves's cut of its predecessor; his return was soon confirmed, along with Bomback's. A conditional 2016 release date was announced in May 2015, which led to a closer and faster pre-production relationship between writer and director. The film bears similarities to Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), with emphasis on the effect of psychosocial development and interaction of apes and humans. Casting began in August 2015 and finished that October, with principal photography commencing soon thereafter and concluding in March 2016, with filming locations including Lower Mainland and the Kananaskis Range.
War for the Planet of the Apes premiered on July 10, 2017, at the SVA Theatre in New York City, and was theatrically released worldwide by 20th Century Fox on July 14. A critical and commercial success, it grossed over $490 million, and received nominations for Best Visual Effects and Best Special Visual Effects at the 90th Academy Awards and 71st British Academy Film Awards, respectively. A standalone sequel, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, was released in 2024.
Plot
In 2028, two years after the Battle of San Francisco, an American battalion known as "Alpha-Omega" aided by apes derogatorily called "donkeys", searches for Caesar's ape colony. A platoon assaults an ape outpost, but the apes repel the attack and kill all but four humans and a donkey gorilla named Red. Caesar releases the human captives as a peacekeeping gesture, but Red escapes after attacking Winter, an albino gorilla in Caesar's tribe. Caesar's young son Blue Eyes and Rocket return from a scouting expedition to report they have found an oasis that could serve as a safer home. That night, the Colonel of Alpha-Omega leads a team to raid the colony and kills Cornelia and Blue Eyes, mistaking the latter for Caesar. Cornelius, Caesar's younger son, manages to survive the attack by hiding while the Colonel escapes.
Caesar, followed by Rocket, Maurice, and Luca, decide to serve as decoys while the tribe journeys to the oasis. In an abandoned village, Caesar kills a human in self-defense and finds his mute daughter, whom Maurice - with Caesar's consent - takes guardianship of, giving her a rag doll. They encounter Winter, now working for Alpha-Omega after giving away their hideout, having faked the attack by Red and letting him escape, and confront him. He reveals that the Colonel is heading north to meet up with the rest of the military forces. Caesar prevents him from alerting the soldiers, but accidentally kills Winter in retribution for his wife and son. As they follow the Colonel, Caesar's group discovers several dead soldiers executed by their own troops; a fatally wounded survivor is revealed to be mute, just like the girl.
Caesar's group chases someone who has stolen one of their horses and discovers the thief is another intelligent ape, Bad Ape, who grew in isolation. He guides them to a former weapons depot-turned quarantine facility in the mountains that serves as the base for the militia. Soldiers kill Luca, and an enraged Caesar tells Maurice, Rocket, Bad Ape, and the mute girl to turn back. Caesar attempts to infiltrate the base alone, but he discovers his tribe has been captured and forced into labor there before Red catches him. Caesar deduces that the Colonel and militia are using the apes to barricade the facility to fend off the incoming military forces, which intend to attack rather than reinforce the militia.
The Colonel reveals that the Simian Flu virus has mutated, causing infected humans to devolve into primitive animals, depriving them of their intelligence and ability to speak. After killing his infected son, he ordered his own troops to kill any carriers before they could infect others. This led to a conflict with his superiors, who believed the disease could still be cured, and are coming to forcibly relieve the Colonel of his command. The Colonel has Caesar tortured, starved, and leaves him exposed to the cold. The mute girl, named Nova by Maurice, sneaks into the facility to feed Caesar. Rocket allows himself to be captured to prevent Nova from being seen and so he and Caesar can formulate a plan to escape. The Colonel later confiscates the doll Nova left for Caesar, but the other apes escape via an underground tunnel.
The military arrives and attacks the facility, and the apes are caught in the crossfire. During the chaos, Caesar sneaks into the Colonel's quarters to kill him, only to find that the virus has infected him after handling Nova's doll. Caesar refuses to kill the Colonel, instead allowing him to kill himself. Caesar then attempts to destroy a fuel tank but is wounded by Preacher, a sergeant he released earlier, with a crossbow. At the sight of the apes being killed, Red redeems himself by killing Preacher with a grenade launcher before being executed. Caesar blows the fuel tank, causing an avalanche that buries both armies as he flees up the trees with the rest of the apes and Nova.
The apes and Nova resume their journey to the oasis. As they arrive, Maurice discovers Caesar's wound and promises that Cornelius will know who his father was and what he did for the apes. With his colony safe in their new home, Caesar peacefully passes away.
Cast
Apes Andy Serkis as Caesar, a chimpanzee who is the leader to the tribe of enhanced apes Steve Zahn as Bad Ape, a chimpanzee who fled from the Sierra Safari Zoo after seeing his family and acquaintances being blamed for the Simian flu and killed by soldiers Toby Kebbell as Koba, a treacherous bonobo whose abusive past caused him to develop a vendetta towards humans and is responsible for the war. He appears to Caesar as a hallucination Judy Greer as Cornelia, Caesar's chimpanzee wife Karin Konoval as Maurice, a Bornean orangutan and Caesar's loyal adviser and friend Terry Notary as Rocket, Caesar's loyal chimpanzee lieutenant Michael Adamthwaite as Luca, a western lowland gorilla and the chief commander of the gorilla guards in Caesar's tribe Ty Olsson as Red, a western lowland gorilla who was a follower of Koba, and now works for Alpha-Omega as a "donkey" Devyn Dalton as Cornelius, the younger chimpanzee son of Caesar and Cornelia Sara Canning as Lake, Blue Eyes' young chimpanzee wife Aleks Paunovic as Winter, an albino western lowland gorilla in Caesar's tribe, who later joins forces with Alpha-Omega out of cowardice Max Lloyd-Jones as Blue Eyes, the young chimpanzee son of Caesar and Cornelia Alessandro Juliani as Spear, a chimpanzee warrior in Caesar's tribe Timothy Webber as Percy, a Bornean orangutan elder in Caesar's tribe
Humans Woody Harrelson as Colonel J. Wesley McCullough (billed simply as "The Colonel"), the vicious leader of the Alpha-Omega paramilitary battalion. The militia employs around 400 militarized people, who remain confident as humanity's last bastion under the leadership of the Colonel Gabriel Chavarria as Preacher, a crossbowman and sergeant in the Alpha-Omega militia Amiah Miller as Nova, a mute but virtuous orphan who Maurice adopts Roger Cross as Rod Wilson, a captain from the Alpha-Omega platoon Mercedes De La Zerda as Private Lang, a soldier whose life is spared after the platoon assault failed and the survivors were captured. Later, she participates in the infiltration team at that night Chad Rook as Private Boyle, a soldier from the quarantine facility who sees the construction of the defensive wall
Production
Development
After seeing his cut of Dawn, 20th Century Fox and Chernin Entertainment signed Matt Reeves to return as director for a third installment of the reboot series. In January 2014, the studio announced the third film, with Reeves returning to direct and co-write along with Bomback, and Peter Chernin, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver serving as producers. During an interview in mid-November 2014 with MTV, Andy Serkis said they did not know the next film's setting. "...It could be five years after the event. It could be the night after the events of where we left Dawn." In May 2015, the title was first given as War of the Planet of the Apes. By October 2015, it had been retitled as War for the Planet of the Apes. When director Reeves and screenwriter Bomback came on board to helm Dawn, the film already had a release date, which led to an accelerated production schedule. However, with the third installment, Fox wanted to give the duo plenty of time to write and make the film. Taking advantage of this, the two bonded with each other more than before.
In interviews for Dawn, Reeves talked about the inevitable war Caesar would have with the humans: "As this story continues, we know that war is not avoided by the end of Dawn. That is going to take us into the world of what he is grappling with. Where he is going to be thrust into circumstances that he never, ever wanted to deal with, and was hoping he could avoid. And now he is right in the middle of it. The things that happen in that story test him in huge ways, in the ways in which his relationship with Koba haunts him deeply. It's going to be an epic story. I think you've probably read that I sort of described it where in the first film was very much about his rise from humble beginnings to being a revolutionary. The second movie was about having to rise to the challenge of being a great leader in the most difficult of times. This is going to be the story that is going to cement his status as a seminal figure in ape history, and sort of leads to an almost biblical status. He is going to become like a mythic ape figure, like Moses."
Toby Kebbell, who portrayed Koba in Dawn, had expressed interest in reprising his role or performing as other characters. Plans to include Koba in a larger role in the film were abandoned early, with Bomback saying, "If you stayed until the very end of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, you hear Koba's breathing. We did that to give us a tiny crack of a possibility that we could revive Koba if we wanted to. Very early on in spitballing, we realized there was nothing more to do with Koba—certainly nothing that would exceed what he had done in the last story. But we knew we wanted to keep him alive as an idea. In playing out the reality of what happened at the end of the last film, Caesar would be traumatized by having to kill his brother. That would have resonance, and we wanted to make sure that did not get lost. So the answer was that we could go inside Caesar's mind at this point and revisit Koba that way."
Casting In August 2015, Deadline reported that Gabriel Chavarria had been cast as one of the humans in the film. In September 2015, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Woody Harrelson had been cast as the film's antagonist, and that Chavarria's role was supporting. In October 2015, TheWrap reported that Steve Zahn was cast as a new ape in the film. It was also announced that actress Amiah Miller was cast as one of the film's humans, with Judy Greer and Karin Konoval reprising their roles as Cornelia and Maurice, while Aleks Paunovic and Sara Canning were cast as new apes.
Filming