Why A New Planet Of The Apes Story Could Be Good For The Franchise
News of another Planet of the Apes movie is exciting, but the early details also raise a fair question: where does the franchise go next?
According to Deadline, The Fantastic Four: First Steps director Matt Shakman is set to direct a new Planet of the Apes movie for 20th Century Studios, with Josh Friedman writing the script. Friedman is already familiar with this world, having written 2024’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. The new film, however, is reportedly being developed as a fresh story rather than a direct continuation of Kingdom.
That may be disappointing for viewers who wanted to follow Noa and Mae immediately after Kingdom, especially since Wes Ball previously said there was “a lot more story to be told” with those characters. Still, a new direction could end up being extremely beneficial for the franchise in several important ways.
Photo Credit: 20th Century Studios
The Series Is No Longer Built Around Caesar
For the modern Planet of the Apes era, Caesar was the emotional spine. Rise, Dawn, and War for the Planet of the Apes all followed his transformation from experiment to revolutionary leader to mythic figure. By the time War ended, the franchise had completed a rare blockbuster arc with a clear beginning, middle, and end.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes moved the timeline forward by several generations and introduced Noa as a new lead, with the world now shaped by Caesar’s legacy rather than his presence. That shift was promising, but it also placed the series in a looser phase. Without Caesar at the center, the franchise has room to test what kind of structure best serves its next era.
The World Is Bigger Than One Hero’s Journey
A fresh story could help Planet of the Apes lean into one of its strongest assets: the scale of its world. Kingdom already showed that ape society has splintered into different clans, belief systems, and interpretations of the past. Some groups treat Caesar as sacred history. Others twist his words for power. Humans, meanwhile, remain divided between those who have lost language and those still trying to reclaim their place.
That leaves an enormous amount of territory to explore. A new film could follow a different ape society, a surviving human enclave (though maybe excluding humans is ideal), a distant region untouched by Noa’s journey, or another chapter in the slow collision between memory, power, and evolution. Expanding the focus could make the franchise feel more unpredictable without abandoning the ideas that made the reboot era work.
But for now, we’ll just have to wait for more details to emerge about where the Planet of the Apes is headed next.
