Screenings for DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES have recently been done for members of the press and the like and advance word is that we are in for a hell of a film (you can check out a nifty video review here). The legendary Alamo Drafthouse also did a screening, and had actors Gary Oldman, Andy Serkis, and director Matt Reeves on hand for a Q&A after the film. They were goodly enough to put it online for us, and thankfully it’s pretty much spoiler-free.
Check it out:
It’s an interesting bit of Q&A, if not all that surprising. One of the things to take note of is that while most performance capture (as Andy Serkis prefers to call it) is done on a stage, DAWN really pushed WETA (the special effects house responsible for giving us photo-realistic apes) to allow the actors to film on location. That’s remarkable, as just about every mo-cap performance you’re likely to see takes place on a set with props and whatnot (AVATAR especially) and now it looks as if filmmakers are free to take their motion capture wherever they choose to. Regardless of the difficulties involved, it sounds like it all paid off.
DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES will arrive in theaters on July 11, 2014.