Owen Teague, whose previous credits include the recent Stephen King adaptations Cell, It, and The Stand, has been cast as the lead primate in the new Planet of the Apes movie being directed by Wes Ball, the director of the Maze Runner trilogy. 20th Century is hoping to get the film into production by the end of the year.
While this new Planet of the Apes is shrouded in secrecy, Deadline hears that
Ball delivered a script to the studio that instantly excited execs about where the new story could take fans of the franchise. A casting process began soon after that. Prior to the Fourth of July holiday, execs and Ball began testing talent for lead roles. While the search remains for the main human role, Teague wowed execs with his screen tests and was offered the role in recent weeks.
Ball’s involvement with Planet of the Apes was first announced at the end of 2019. In 2020, he confirmed that development of the project was continuing through Zoom conversations during the pandemic shutdown. He was working on the script with Josh Friedman – whose credits include War of the Worlds 2005, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Terminator: Dark Fate, Snowpiercer, and Avatar: The Way of Water – and said an art team had been creating some “incredible concept art”. Ball also said that his movie is going to feel like the recent Apes movies (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, War for the Planet of the Apes) but will also be doing its own thing. He told Discussing Film,
Those last three movies are one of the great trilogies we have in modern movie history. 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.
We have a take. We have a way of staying in the universe that was created before us, but we’re also opening ourselves up in being able to do some really cool new stuff. Again, I’m trying to be careful here. I’ll say this, for fans of the original three don’t worry – you’re in good hands. The original writers and producers that came up with Rise and Dawn, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, they’re also on board with this. Josh Friedman is writing this thing, a lot of the same crew is kind of involved. We will feel like we’re part of that original trilogy, but at the same time we’re able to do some really cool new stuff. It will be really exciting to see on the biggest screen possible.”
In addition to the Stephen King projects, Owen Teague has been seen in I See You, Mary, Montana Story, and Gone in the Night.
Are you looking forward to seeing Teague’s primate performance in the next Planet of the Apes? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.