Matt Reeves believed that he was going to be fired from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes when he suggested one crucial change to the plot point. He was brought in to helm the film in October 2012 after Rupert Wyatt, the first film’s director, dropped out of the project. Reeves suggested telling the story from Caesar’s point of view and beginning the film during the creation of ape civilization rather than in a post-apocalyptic world.
However, the studio trusted Reeves’ creative vision and allowed him to tell the story he intended. It became one of the best decisions by the studio as Reeves ended up making the highest-grossing film in the Planet of the Apes franchise.
Matt Reeves Feared He Would Be Fired For One Radical Change in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
After the success of Rise of the Planet of the Apes with James Franco and Andy Serkis, a second film by Rupert Wyatt was confirmed in November 2011. However, Wyatt was reportedly not happy with the deadline given to him and left the project in September 2012 (via Deadline). Matt Reeves joined the film after the producers were impressed with his film Cloverfield.
Reeves shared with Empire during an interview that the film’s name was already fixed when he joined the film. He shared that the name perfectly fit the vision he had for the film. The Batman director’s film was a radical shift from what the crew had in mind.
According to the initial storyline, the apes start taking over a post-apocalyptic San Francisco and they are much more intelligent and communicative. The story was not from Caesar’s point of view which concerned Reeves. Reeves believed that the secret of the Planet of the Apes movies is telling the ape’s point of view.
He wanted to bring in some radical changes to the story idea, but he shared with Empire that he feared being kicked out from the production. Luckily for Reeves, the studio was willing to listen to his vision. Reeves shared with Empire:
“It was not from Caesar’s point of view. I was little thrown. I said, ‘The thing about Rise was that it was an ape point of view movie, Caesar’s movie. That’s the secret of the movie. And if I were gonna do the movie, I would do something different.’ I thought they were gonna kick me out of the office then. But they were like, ‘So what would you do?’”
Reeves suggested a film that was told from Caesar’s POV. He shared that his film would start with the creation of the ape civilization. He had this idea of showing what the dawn of intelligent apes would look like, which also aligned with the name of the film. Reeves’ vision was interesting for the studio, which decided to move forward with that idea.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Looks To Beat Matt Reeves’ Film’s Box Office
According to Box Office Mojo, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes collected $710.6 million at the box office, becoming the highest-grossing film in the franchise. According to Variety, the new Planet of the Apes entry has made a $56 million debut at the box office. While it’s still lower than the $72 million made by Matt Reeves’ film during its debut, the solid number and positive word-of-mouth could boost the new film’s box office performance.
Interestingly, Kingdom has performed better than the predictions which calculated the debut collection at $50-55 million (via Variety). The numbers are definitely better than its predecessor, Reeves’ War for the Planet of the Apes.
Wes Ball’s new film is set 300 years after the events of the last film, where the apes fully control the world. It tells the story of how Noa, a chimp with a heart, sets out to protect his family and a young human named Mae from the despotic ruler, Proximus Caesar.
The first three films in the Planet of the Apes franchise are now available for streaming on Hulu.
