Rupert Wyatt Dishes On Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes Sequel

A success both critically and at the box office, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is almost guaranteed to see a sequel. Bleeding Cool spoke to director Rupert Wyatt recently and got the scoop on where he thinks the second film could go.

“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.”

Some of this seems pretty promising. Obviously the Full Metal Jacket idea is intriguing but I also like the “apes taking over cities” idea. That’s something I thought we’d see in Rise of the Planet of the Apes and I was pretty disappointed that we didn’t get anything like that, aside from the final scene. Wyatt goes on to talk about some other great ideas like the spies, existing underground etc. Honestly, this is all stuff I was hoping to see in the first film.

If Wyatt gets his way, and is able to craft a sequel based on some of the ideas he’s talking about here, I think we’ll be in for a real treat. I didn’t love Rise of the Planet of the Apes but thus far, the sequel has me intrigued. I’m definitely behind Wyatt’s vision for the second film and I’d love to see it become a reality.