How do you breathe new life into a film series that has existed for over half a century? That’s exactly the question director Wes Ball had to ask himself when he started working on Planet of the Apes: New Kingdom. The tenth film in the iconic sci-fi saga jumps 300 years into the future and shows us the earth ruled by monkeys.
When Ball developed the story, however, he did not base himself on the classics of science fiction cinema. Rather, it was a mixture Survival thriller and historical adventurewhich caught his attention: The new Planet of the Apes film was largely inspired by 2006’s Apocalypto.
An adventure film for a sci-fi blockbuster: This is how Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto inspired Planet of the Apes 4
Apocalypto was directed by Mel Gibson and features incredibly brutal scenes. The story takes place in the early 16th century and begins in a Mayan village on the North American Yucatán Peninsula attacked by an enemy tribe us before the Spanish colonization of Central America begins.
You can watch the trailer for Apocalypto here:
Apocalypto – Trailer (German)
Ahead of the theatrical release of Planet of the Apes: New Kingdom, we had the opportunity to speak with Ball about the making of his film. In this context, we also asked him about his cinematic inspirations asked.
Ball then replied:
I basically went back to all of the Planet of the Apes films, but Apocalypto was the first big inspiration [für Planet der Affen: New Kingdom]. I wasn’t really interested in the revenge element. I was more touched by the story of this one innocent, naive, small tribe, who is attacked by another tribe and suddenly finds that the world is much bigger. A journey of discovery then begins.
In addition to Apocalypto, Ball reveals another major inspiration:
This motif is also present in another film that I definitely want to mention: In the Beginning was the Fire from 1981. Many people probably don’t know it, but it is very similar to our film. It’s about the first Cavemen discovering fire, which changes their world forever. Two great adventure films: Apocalypto and In the Beginning There Was Fire fueled Planet of the Apes 4
While Apocalypto was shot entirely in the Mayan language Mayathan, there wasn’t a single understandable word in In the Beginning, the Fire. Instead, writer Anthony Burgess developed one own language for the film to make the cavemen’s communication as authentic as possible.
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Ball is not the only Hollywood director to have been inspired by this work. Roland Emmerich also called In the beginning there was fire important pioneer for his adventure epic 10,000 BC from 2008. Thanks to New Kingdom, the DNA of the classic can now also be found in the Planet of the Apes universe.
Planet of the Apes: New Kingdom has been running since then May 8, 2024 in German cinemas. The film is intended to act as the start of a new trilogy. Whether this is actually coming has not yet been officially confirmed.