Director Wes Ball revealed that ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes‘ used VFX akin to ‘Avatar‘ instead of The Volume.
Ball said the movie’s set and visual effects, set against lush backgrounds, give a ‘lived-in’ feel similar to Avatar’s Pandora. However, he admitted they didn’t match James Cameron‘s budget.
‘Avatar’ CGI Inspired for ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,’ Says Wes Ball
In an interview with Collider, Ball said, “We basically shot on location, as you can see there or it’s full CG, you know characters like the ‘Avatar’ did. We’re closer to ‘Avatar’ than saying what ‘The Mandalorian’ is doing.” He added, “I wanted to go back to that lush, beautiful world that underneath is haunted with the remains of our existence.”
Ball continued, “We can’t reach that far out. I’m not James Cameron. I don’t have hundreds of millions of dollars. But can we make a movie where it’s like, I want to go explore that? I want to climb that building. I want to go live in that place with the bugs flying around and just make it real. That was the thing that we talked a lot about.”
Director Wes Ball from a screenplay by Josh Friedman, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, and Patrick Aison. The film stars Owen Teague as Cornelius, the chimpanzee son of Caesar, along with Freya Allan, Peter Macon, Eka Darville, Kevin Durand, Travis Jeffery, Neil Sandilands, Sara Wiseman, Lydia Peckham, Ras-Samuel Weld A’abzgi, William H. Macy, and Dichen Lachman.
The franchise set several generations in the future following Caesar’s reign, in which apes are the dominant species living harmoniously and humans have been reduced to living in the shadows. As a new tyrannical ape leader builds his empire, one young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question all that he has known about the past and to make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.
The film’s second trailer premiered during Super Bowl LVIII and is now available on YouTube.
‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ will hit theaters on May 10, 2024, by 20th Century Studios.
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