More 'Planet of the Apes' Films Coming After 'War'

08/31/2017 04:29 pm EDT

The rebooted Planet of the Apes trilogy appears to be a rare occurrence where a film trilogy starts with a solid installment and manages to improve in quality with each new movie.

War for the Planet of the Apes has received glowing reviews from critics ahead of its release and, according to PopCulture.com's review, War for the Planet of the Apes "can serve as a brilliant finale to Caesar's story which began with a James Franco character more than half of a decade ago or a source of brand new life for 20th Century Fox's most consistent franchise -- or both." As it turns out, War will be doing more of the latter.

While the third Apes film will be the second and last for director Matt Reeves, the franchise will continue beyond the film.

"It isn't the end of the franchise," Reeves said. "To me the idea is that this is the Caesar cycle. These films are the films that establish him as the legend, as the mythic character who, for lack of a better way of describing it, it's like a biblical epic, this movie. He's the seminal figure in all ape history and he's the one that apes in the future will look to and go, 'Wow, if it weren't for him and what he did, we wouldn't be here.'"

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Reeves, however, is happy to have told such a story in War for the Planet of the Apes, pushing the ape species to the brink of extinction, relying on Caesar to guide their survival. "That was really exciting, to know that this story was going to have to be the greatest test yet because each film has been a dramatic test for Caesar," Reeves said. "To know that this one was going to be pushing things as far as they could possibly go and we were gonna make a war not just between the species but a war in Caesar's heart, a war for Caesar's soul, that was exciting sort of thing to do."

War for the Planet of the Apes is directed by Matt Reeves, who will go on to direct The Batman after the project. The 20th Century Fox film Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn, Amiah Miller, Karin Konoval, Judy Greer & Terry Notary, with Peter Chernin, Dylan Clark, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver serving as producers. Reeves teamed with Mark Womback to write the movie.

War for the Planet of the Apes hits theaters on July 14.

Photo Credit: Chernin Entertainment

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