Planet of the Apes 3 Release, Spoilers, Latest News: Scheduled for Summer of 2016 Release, Planet of the Apes 3 a ‘Generational Story’?

By Kara Michelle Aug 28, 2014 08:37 AM EDT

Planet of the Apes 3 Release, Spoilers, Latest News: Scheduled for Summer of 2016 Release, Planet of the Apes 3 a 'Generational Story'?

Planet of the Apes 3 will be released on July 29, 2016, according to an official announcement from 20th Century Fox. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves has been re-hired to helm the still untitled sequel to his critically acclaimed and commercially successful film. He will also be co-writing the script for the upcoming film with Mark Bombeck.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which was released July 11, has so far grossed close to $555 million worldwide at the box office. Rotten Tomatoes' critic consensus about the movie says, " With intelligence and emotional resonance to match its stunning special effects, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes expands on its predecessor with an exciting and ambitious burst of sci-fi achievement." To date, none of the film's cast has been confirmed to return for the sequel. However, there is widespread fan clamor that Andy Serkis, who voiced and did the motion capture performance for the Caesar character, be brought back for Planet of the Apes 3.

Though Planet of the Apes 3 is still at the development stage, Reeves in an interview with io9 shared some of his thoughts on the possible direction that the next film in the series will be heading to. In the next film, it may explore how Caesar will rise to assume his god-like stature among the apes. Said Reeves: "He becomes a very mythic character. And he's the Caesar that shall begin other Caesars....The question is how do we get there? And this then becomes a generational story. A story of not only of Caesar and his family, but his children and how this story continues down that path. How Caesar becomes the first, truly mythic god-like character for the apes. He's very seminal figure for the apes. The idea, the objective for the story was to being the beginning of that mythic status for him. He goes from being a kind of revolutionary to a kind of leader to a mythic god."