Disney Has a New “Planet of the Apes” Saga in the Making

Nearly six decades after the franchise first sent humanity into the ruins of its own civilisation, “Planet of the Apes” is approaching another turning point. Disney appears to be stepping away from the story established by “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”, leaving behind the characters, locations and unresolved tensions introduced in 2024 and preparing an entirely new chapter for one of science fiction’s most durable worlds.

The next film is being developed by 20th Century Studios with Matt Shakman attached to direct and Josh Friedman writing the screenplay. Shakman recently brought “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, while Friedman is now tasked with deciding where a franchise with almost sixty years of mythology can go without simply retracing its own history.

What makes the development particularly significant is what Disney appears to be abandoning. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” was initially understood as the opening movement of another trilogy, continuing the timeline established by the Caesar films. The new project, however, is reportedly being shaped as the beginning of a different story, potentially opening another trilogy with a new cast, new settings and a fresh point of entry into the mythology.

That decision leaves the ending of “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” hanging in the air.

Directed by Wes Ball, the film introduced a world generations removed from Caesar, while quietly revealing a second human civilisation developing beyond the knowledge of the dominant ape societies. Its final sequence suggested that contact between these hidden human communities could eventually reshape the fragile balance between the two species.

That thread may now remain unresolved.

“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” was hardly a critical failure. The film holds an 80 per cent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and was broadly received as a worthy continuation of the franchise, even if it struggled to carry the emotional density of the Caesar trilogy. Financially, however, its position was more complicated. Produced for an estimated $160 million, the film earned roughly $397 million worldwide, respectable figures, but considerably below the franchise peak established by “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”, which surpassed $700 million.

For Disney, that difference may have been enough to reconsider the road ahead.

A Franchise That Keeps Rebuilding Itself

The curious thing about “Planet of the Apes” is that reinvention has never been particularly foreign to it.

The franchise was first radically reworked by Tim Burton in 2001, when his “Planet of the Apes” offered a new interpretation of the original material. A decade later, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” moved backwards through the mythology, tracing the biological and social conditions that would eventually allow apes to inherit the world.

That film became the beginning of the Caesar trilogy, followed by “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” and “War for the Planet of the Apes”. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” then moved the timeline forward by generations, leaving Caesar as a historical figure rather than its central character.

Now the cycle appears ready to begin again.

The question is no longer simply what happens after Caesar. It is whether the next film will remain within the established timeline at all.

One possibility is a deeper examination of humanity’s final disappearance from the world. The previous films have shown the collapse of civilisation and the rise of intelligent ape societies, but there remains a vast historical distance between those events and the bleak landscape of the original 1968 film, where humans have lost language and exist at the bottom of the social order.

“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” only brushed against that future. A new story could move directly into it.

There is another route: returning to the foundations of the mythology itself.

The original “Planet of the Apes” introduced astronauts arriving on a seemingly alien world, only for the film to reveal that they had returned to a transformed Earth. Subsequent instalments repeatedly echoed that mythology, including references to the Icarus spacecraft and the possibility that its crew could one day reappear.

A new film could take that premise apart and rebuild it with contemporary filmmaking technology.

That prospect would inevitably invite comparisons with the 1968 original, but the visual possibilities are radically different now. The apes of the first film were created through prosthetics, masks and elaborate costumes. Today’s productions can construct entire societies through motion capture, digital environments and increasingly sophisticated performance work. The technology changes the physical language of the franchise, leaving room for a version of its foundational story that could be considerably stranger, harsher and more immersive.

Shakman Has Another Universe Waiting

Matt Shakman‘s involvement adds another complication.

His recent work on “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” established a distinctive retro-futurist visual world within Marvel’s enormous cinematic machinery. If his “Planet of the Apes” film moves toward a 2027 theatrical release, his attention will inevitably be divided between two major franchises.

That could have consequences for “The Fantastic Four 2”.

Marvel has not abandoned the Fantastic Four. The team is already scheduled to appear in “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars”, keeping the characters embedded in the larger MCU narrative. But a director committed to another large-scale production may have less room to immediately return to Marvel.

A “Fantastic Four” sequel could therefore arrive considerably later than audiences might expect, particularly if Shakman’s new “Planet of the Apes” project occupies the next phase of his schedule and requires the lengthy production cycle associated with effects-heavy blockbusters.

For now, the ape franchise has the more immediate question to answer.

What happens when a story that has spent years moving forward decides to erase the road behind it?

Disney‘s next “Planet of the Apes” film is currently expected around 2027, almost sixty years after the original changed science fiction cinema. Whether it becomes another continuation, a distant branch of the existing mythology or a complete reconstruction remains uncertain.

What is becoming clearer is that the franchise is no longer interested in simply asking what happened to humanity.

It is deciding where the story should begin again.