While almost every beast inKingdom of the Planet of the Apeswas computer engender , one particular species was practical : the leeches on the bodies of the intact crew .
“ Everyone was just crawling with leeches and they start everywhere because you do n’t feel them,”director Wes Ball told io9 last week . “ We ’re shooting in these fields and it ’s just like infestation . And the great unwashed for day were like , ‘ Oh , god ’ and suddenly … you understand there ’s been a sponge latching on to you and your foot is covered in blood . It was just one of the many sacrifices we made for the hearing . ”
Ballspoke to io9 not only aboutthe leeches on set for his raw Planet of the Apes sequel , but also the action sequence he could n’t film because it was too expensive , why there are so many eagle in the pic , working with former filmmakers Matt Reeves and Andy Serkis , and much , much more .
Wes Ball on set.Image: Fox
Read the full , non - spoiler interview below and check back next workweek for Ball ’s spoilery thoughts on the film ’s conclusion , the future of the franchise , and that disgraceful opening .
This interview has been edited for length and clarity .
Germain Lussier , io9 : So I read that you ab initio were a little hesitant about tackling this franchise , but then had an idea that made you decide to do it . recount me what it was that made you not require to do it — and what made you actually do it ?
Image: Fox
Wes Ball : You did n’t require to continue the trilogy in a way , good ? It had a perfect fiddling beginning , middle , and end . There was no reason to go back into it . I understand people wanted to see what would happen to [ Caesar ’s ] son and those kinds of thing , but I did n’t . I did n’t see how you would stretch a lot of story out of that . And you do n’t require to be a part four . Part fours do n’t work , typically . You sleep with , beginning , middle , end . We ’re wired for that . One , two , three . And so the question was : could I notice a room to do our own thing but still not forsake the storyline that come before ? I think we found a fashion to do it . Hopefully fans will revalue it . Audiences who have n’t view those movies will also still find value in it all and meaning in the story .
But that was kind of the goal for me : can we do our own thing that was a tarradiddle of its own that ’s worth tattle , that fits into not just the former trilogy , but the full legacy of these film ? There ’s been nine movies before us . How do we kind of set into that deoxyribonucleic acid ? And I remember part of that was make Rick [ Jaffa ] and Amanda [ Silver ] coming out on a panel early on and helping to kind of craftsmanship that trajectory ahead . Hopefully , we ’ve done it for multitude , we ’ll see .
io9 : Right , I know you had [ writers / manufacturer ] Rick and Amanda as a part of this , but did you speak to Matt [ Reeves ] and Rupert [ Wyatt ] specifically about what it ’s like to work on these movie ?
Image: Fox
nut : Not Rupert , but Matt I had known on Mouse Guard . Two age before , we had known each other . And I picked his brain about the mocap and all that kind of stuff that he did on Apes . [ Mouse Guard ] was a different summons because we were going to be full CGI there , but still the same performance capture stuff and nonsense . So I got my feet wet there . And he was always a great source of experience and soundness for that . And I meet Andy [ Serkis ] because I cast off him in that movie , too . So I foregather both those guys and I knew them .
So when this happened , I had dinner party with Matt betimes on and told him what I was thinking , where I was think about going , where I could go . I reckon he was literally on a woodworking plane to go do Batman . And I got the gumption that he said , “ I did mine , go [ do yours ] . Thumbs up . ” And I feel surefooted in that . And then Andy , I just kept in ghost with Andy just to kind of inquire , “ Hey , are we getting this ripe ? ” patently , Caesar is hang up over this movie in an important means and I said he ’s the Ape Godfather for us . If he differentiate me that this was painful , I would have walk away .
io9 : I know he also officially consulted on this picture too . Did you ask him to do that and what was that conversation like ?
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Ball : Yeah . He ’s coolheaded . He ’s the nicest , most generous guy ever . I was like “ Andy , can I show you the stuff ? ” He was like , “ Dude , come on . ” I sent him the script , I place him this gigantic pack of conception prowess to get a sense of what the visual of the pic was going to be . We talk for a few hour or something over Zoom [ while ] I was in Australia . And then he came on and I asked him to go talk to the actors . The doer have never done this before . And he give them his wisdom [ on ] how you trust this process , how you may mentally kind of prepare for it . He was just a cool gallant , valet de chambre . Greatest guy ever .
io9 : You mention how Caesar ’s idea take on an authoritative part in the movie . Talk about cover and balancing his influence on this time and these characters .
globe : That was the interesting thought because of the fourth dimension leap . In our own human account , we ’ve had plentitude of lost knowledge . We make these great find , and then we lose it , and someone rediscovers it . I love the idea [ that ] there was a obscure ages after Caesar buy the farm and many matter were lost . And how it can split . There ’s even a deleted scene somewhere that had to cut for time , unfortunately , but we babble about that a little bit , the rent that happened . And we had this large kind of two versions of Caesar in the flick embodied through Raka and through Proximus Caesar . And Noa , this fresh , white Sir Frederick Handley Page that coiffure off on this adventure of self - discovery and find for the universe around him , he get to be influenced by these two musical theme . It ’s going to mold him into the future going forward . Who he ’s live on to become is because of the father visualize that descend and go from his life in this movie , including his interactions with humans themselves . So it just felt like the right idea to play around with ideas and the concept of truth and how frail it is .
Image: Fox
io9 : Apes with birds is a vainglorious part of the marketing for this moving picture . Where did that mind come from ?
Ball : Yeah , it was just this idea . I ’ve talked about it before , but , apes were in the Stone Age in the premature motion picture . Apes are entering the Bronze Age in this flick . culture , unlike worlds , evolution , mirroring our own as a species edge through civilisation . And this musical theme of human beings domesticise wiener [ into ] man ’s best friend shows their advancement , their ingenuity , all that form of clobber .
[ So ] I ca n’t do click , what do I do ? I landed on eagles . Sweet ! It ’s a cool visual , and I just like the estimation . And this whole egg climb ritual make out into my point right away , and just all that stuff that just felt like , “ Oh , it ’s almost a fancy world that is very extraneous but somehow you may register between the lines . ” We do n’t do a lot of exposition . We do n’t explicate a lot of it . You just have to generalize a lot of it . And I cerebrate this is what you ’re getting here .
Image: Fox
io9 : I ’m also curious about the form of address . You made a antic online about how long it was — so , was that always the title ?
Ball : I had two unlike statute title . I came in when I was pitching and I had two musical composition of concept artistic creation that I made . One was Empire of the Planet of the Apes , and there was Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes because there ’s the whole idea that it was the first realm start to form . This king , the first king ape . And obviously , we could n’t do “ Empire , ” as cool as it voice … We just keep back trying to think about different things and [ Kingdom ] kept sticking . [ But ] I get it , I get it . They ’re strange titles . It ’s just that ’s the way these moving picture go . You sort of wet-nurse it up .
io9 : in the first place today I was speaking to Weta ’s Erik Winquist [ VFX Supervisor ] and he address very extremely of you and body of work .
nut : I would do the same of him .
io9 : I asked him if there was anything I should ask Wes about and he sound out to me “ leeches . ” What did he mean ?
chunk : Oh , great . Well , one of our locating was a leech field . Everyone was just crawling with leeches and they mother everywhere because you do n’t feel them . So we ’re dissipate in these field of view and it ’s just like plague . And people for days were like , “ Oh , god ” and suddenly you just see there ’s a track of blood on the charabanc as you ’re going home and like , “ Oh , dirt . ” And you actualize there ’s been a sponge latching on to you and your substructure is traverse in rakehell . It was just one of the many sacrifice we made for the hearing .
io9 : Working with Weta , you have to cogitate anything is potential , but also maybe not . Was there anything you come up with during writing or evolution that you came up with but simply could n’t give ?
formal : Yeah , there ’s plenty of that .
io9 : Give me one example
Ball : I need to do the great horse following . essentially , a car chase on hogback is what I kept pitching it as . It could be awesome . It was taking place on the clay of an old Los Angeles freeway system . They ’re all alternate and they ’re collapsing and it was nuts . I prevized it , I storyboarded it , and it ’s freaking awesome . And I just could not give it . It was too much .
io9 : Oh , that reminds me that we do see the characters traverse LAX [ Los Angeles International Airport ] for a second . How did that issue forth about ?
Ball : Yeah , just one of the nerveless breakthrough . That ’s a arrant example of how we thought , “ blink and you miss it . ” You do n’t even realize that you ’re in the corpse of a domain anymore . [ Earlier ] he falls through and you realise , “ Where am I ? ” And it slowly derive into focus and at long last in the very end , as you ’re leaving , you realize where it is you are . That was just a cool musical theme throughout the movie [ where ] we do that .
io9 : As someone who used to have a Legend of Zelda way in their house , I have to bring up the fact you are attach to make that moving picture . I know you ca n’t say anything about it but you talked earlier about ab initio being cautious about making this movie . Zelda is on a whole other level in terms of responsibility . What can you say about how you decided “ Yes , I can do this . I ’m the guy . ”
Ball : It ’s the same thing I learned on The Maze Runner movie on a belittled scale . I think it had sold like five million copies of book when we started that pic . But the lover base was loud and vivid . And so I learned a little number of that . expectation came there and they told me when I got it wrong . Same thing on this one . And I empathise . I do n’t have blinders on . I know what I ’m going into . I would not have done it unless I thought I was capable of doing it . I would n’t have done this movie if I did n’t think I was adequate to of doing it . Hopefully I have . We ’ll see . But I grow up playing Zelda , stargaze about Zelda , thinking about Zelda . It ’s an important thing to me , so I will do my good to not mess it up . ”
io9 : You also allege that you were hesitant to do this movie until you had an idea that made you excited to do it . Did that bump on Zelda as well ?
Ball : No . I ’ll say it ’s been many old age .
io9 : Obviously I ’m hoping that you plunk up that Master Sword tomorrow , but , assuming that ’s not going to bechance , do you plan on working on a new Apes movie ? Would you even like to ? What is next for you ?
egg : I would be favorable , obviously , to do it . We ’d require to get it right . So I think that ’s the beauty of it . We can take our meter to get it good . And I do n’t think this is a dealership that has to be made tomorrow . So , we ’ve have musical theme where we want to go [ and ] we ’re gon na keep marching forward if it ’s successful , [ and ] whether there ’s an appetence for it .
Check back next calendar week for more from Ball . Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is in field Friday .
Want more io9 word ? correspond out when to look the latestMarvel , Star Wars , andStar Trekreleases , what ’s next for theDC Universe on film and telecasting , and everything you need to fuck about the future ofDoctor Who .
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