This Wednesday, May 8, the new opus of “Planet of the Apes”, entitled “The New Kingdom”, will be released in cinemas.
The franchise is one of the oldest in Hollywood since the very first episode with Charlton Heston in 1968.
This was based on the novel by Frenchman Pierre Boulle, written five years earlier.
Weakened humans, almost decimated by a virus, and kept apart. Apes who reign supreme on Earth. Power quarrels, authoritarian excesses and rebellion are on the menu of “The New Kingdom”the film which follows “Supremacy” (2017), situating the action three centuries later. Political satire is at the heart of the success of “The Planet of the Apes” from the beginning. Present in the book by Frenchman Pierre Boulle in 1963, it also serves as a framework for all the films produced since the first in 1968, with Charlton Heston.
Films adapted to their time
The franchise also owes its success to the quality of the special effects. No more masks and long hours of makeup from the beginning. In the 2010s, they gave way to a more sophisticated technique: “motion capture”. The subtleties of expressions and play are recorded by cameras, then the monkeys are animated on a computer. All these ingredients fuel the popularity of “The Planet of the Apes” for over sixty years.
