If there’s one thing apes are afraid of besides drowning, it’s George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road prequel Furiosa. To avoid conflict at the box office during Memorial Day weekend, 20th Century Studios‘ Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is moving to May 10 to avoid Furiosa’s wrath. The new date pushes Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes up by two weeks, giving the Wes Ball-directed action film time to earn more bananas at the box office before Furiosa inevitably leaves other releases in the dust.
The new date finds Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes competing with Focus Features’ Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black, Sony’s horror comedy Horrorscope, and an untitled release from Angel Pictures. It’s also worth mentioning that Mark Lindal’s The Garfield Movie, starring Chris Pratt as the voice of the Monday-hating, lasagna-eating orange Persian tabby bows on May 24.
Swinging into theaters an Imax on May 10, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes features Owen Teague (The Stand) as the new lead primate. In addition to Teague the rest of the cast of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes includes William H. Macy (Fargo, Shameless, Mystery Men), Freya Allan (The Witcher), Peter Macon (The Orville), Eka Darville (Jessica Jones), Kevin Durand (The Strain), Travis Jeffery (Unbroken), Sara Wiseman (One Of Us Is Lying), Neil Sandilands (Sweet Tooth), Ras-Samuel Welda’abzgi (The Clearing), and Lydia Peckham (Cowboy Bebop).
Wes Ball, who directed The Maze Runner trilogy, is helming this new Planet of the Apes movie. He’s previously said that although it will chart its own course, it will still honor the original films, particularly the more recent trilogy of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and War for the Planet of the Apes.
“Those last three movies are one of the great trilogies we have in modern movie history,” Ball said about the previous films in the Apes franchise. “They are just so well done. They honored the original movies they sprang from, the Charlton Heston movies, but they grounded it in a modern sensibility and it just worked. Caesar is one of the great movie characters that we’ll have throughout time. So, what do you do to follow that up, right? At the same time, I wasn’t interested in doing a part four either. We want to also do our own thing.”
Do you think it’s a good idea for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes to get our of Furiosa‘s way at the box office? Which movie are you looking forward to more? Let us know in the comments below.