During Sunday’s Super Bowl LVIII, tons of trailers dropped for big 2024 movies to get excited for, between the first look at Deadpool & Wolverine, Ariana Grande as Glinda in the first Wicked trailer and an epic new Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes trailer. In regards to the latter, it was established Caesar’s reign ended generations ago, but that doesn’t mean Andy Serkis wasn’t still considered and involved behind the scenes in the making of the franchise’s latest installment.
Alongside select press, CinemaBlend recently had the chance to learn about the making of the upcoming Apes film with director Wes Ball in Burbank, California where the filmmakers are currently finishing post-production on the film ahead of its May release date. During the edit bay visit, Wes Ball said this about Andy Serkis’ involvement in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes:
I got to know Andy a little bit previously on [Mouse Guard], and Matt [Reeves] would always say he's the best actor ever worked with, and we thought early on ‘Man, it could be cool to bring Andy in. Could you play another character? That would be pretty awesome.’ And then, Andy actually had done a thing where he had read one of the lines against one of the actors. And so he read and he did Caesar, and like, you hear it and you're like ‘Oh my god, it’s Caesar!’ And, not that he couldn't do it, but it just kind of felt wrong.It's like we're seeing that time is over. We decided not to do it, basically. But, I talked to Andy a lot. I showed him the script, told him what the ideas were. I showed him the concept art, all this kind of stuff. And [asked him] ‘Am I getting this right? Is this gonna feel blah, blah, blah?’ I wanna do something a little different. They're gonna talk more in this movie. All this kind of stuff.
As Wes Ball shared, when he signed on to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, he had already established a relationship with Andy Serkis after working with him on the scrapped Mouse Guard movie and wondered if he could involve the mo-cap expert in his movie. Considering the setting of the movie, Serkis could not return as Caesar and after hearing the actor read some lines from Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, he realized it wasn’t right to have the voice of the fallen king in it. That being said, Serkis was involved in another way. As Ball continued:
Andy was so crucial, I think in just sitting with us and talking about how we say kind of true to the spirit of things while still carving our own path. I was like, ‘Dude, this is so valuable what you're talking about, and I've got a bunch of actors’. When Andy made Apes, he'd already made Gollum, King Kong, [Captain Haddock] from Tintin.. He's like a veteran on mo-cap at this point. And all of our actors here, no one's ever done this before, right? This is totally new for them. And so I was like, ‘Andy, could you come and like, talk to the gang and give good pointers?’ And he was like ‘Say no more.’
While Andy Serkis is not among the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes cast, he was involved in helping all the actors playing apes with their performances. Wes Ball shared that the actors went to “ape camp” for two months ahead of stepping on set with their mo-cap suits to play the characters and had the support of Andy Serkis to give them a few pointers.
Andy was seriously the nicest freaking guy ever. So generous and just kind and supportive. And so, he talked to all the actors and kind of just told him what he had learned. Our big thing is like, you can't pretend to be an ape. You have to be an ape. And that's hard for the actors. Like, you're walking around with these silly suits and you look ridiculous. And like, how do you just get past that and just be and just do it and be authentic, you know? And I think that was a real journey and struggle for all the guys at first.
You wouldn’t know where everything started by the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes trailer, which dropped during Sunday’s game. Check it out below:
While Serkis is not officially part of the production’s cast, it’s pretty special he had such an influence on the film. Andy Serkis has previously talked about Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, too, saying he thinks it’s gonna “blow people’s minds” once it comes out. You can see Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes in theaters on May 10.
