planet of the apes

'Battle for the Planet of the Apes'' budgetary restrictions doomed the final installment of a groundbreaking science fiction phenomenon.

First 1968 film kicked off a franchise that's still going strong decades later.

An actor has been found for the lead role.

Third movie in series brings simian heroes to 1973 Earth, and begins completing saga's circle.

Hot take: The Planet of the Apes has always been one of the very best franchises ever. Even back in the ’70s, even when some of the ape masks looked a little hokey, the Apes series consistently delivered some of the most thoughtful, prescient, spooky, and unrelentingly bleak sci-fi films Hollywood has ever produced. Nearly every single one ends on a mega-bummer; beloved characters dying, entire races getting wiped out, or, in one awesomely disturbing example, the entire freaking planet getting blown to smithereens.

As we prepare to polish off the crap sandwich that was 2016, we can allow ourselves some scant crumbs of hope as we look out over the slate of movies for the year to come. There are some exciting prospects on the calendar, with one of the more surprisingly excellent recent franchises making its triumphant return...

On Thursday, 20th Century Fox showed journalists some sneak peek footage from the upcoming War for the Planet of the Apes. I got to see some brand new unreleased footage, hear some details from director Matt Reeves, and see the new trailer.

Few franchises have had a more successful or impressive reinvention in recent years as Planet of the Apes. The original series, beloved in its day, petered out by the middle of the 1970s, and the first attempt to revive it, in a 2001 film from director Tim Burton, proved disastrous. But the new prequel series, charting the descent of our human world into a planet full of those damn, dirty apes, has breathed new life into the old property. Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a late-summer hit in August 2011, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes outgrossed it three years later. (It made about $30 million more in the U.S. and a whopping $220 million more worldwide.)

It’s been a minute (or several) since we’ve heard anything new from War For the Planet of the Apes, but Matt Reeves’ follow-up to 2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes finally has an official synopsis — and just in time for its appearance at New York Comic Con next week. Oh, and by the way, War for the Planet of the Apes is heading to NYCC next week, which means we should be hearing a whole lot more about the exciting new sequel very soon.

During yesterday's panel for 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' at Comic-Con 2013, we got our very first look at the new Caesar, played by Andy Serkis. Much has changed for Caesar since the first film -- he's now leading his very own army of primates, bent on world domination. And now we can share a new image of Caesar with you.