Everything was supposed to go horribly wrong when 20th Century Fox decided to reboot "The Planet of the Apes" in 2011. Tim Burton's already much maligned reboot in 2001 starring Marky Mark had been consistently mocked. Rupert Wyatt, a relative unknown that made his feature filmmaking debut in 2009 with the rather mixed reviewed "The Escapist" had been given the task to reboot the franchise and YET what an admirable job he did with the material at hand.
The sequel, "The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," was just as good, with Matt Reeves ("Let Me In," "Cloverfield") taking over Wyatt at the director's chair and surprising us with the chops he has as an action director that never substitutes character for the usual muscular action we're used to seeing in these types of blockbusters.
However, the real star of the these films was, of course, Andy Serkis who played Cesar, an ape raised by a human scientist (James Franco's Will) that eventually goes haywire and realizes the importance of his own freedom. Serkis deserved an Oscar nomation for the way he brought real feeling to what was essentially CGI based character, just like he did with Gollum in "The Lord of the Rings." It's a tour de force performance that elevated both movies into more than just crass entertainment. This was art.
Twentieth Century Fox had a real winner and word of mouth was contagious. The all out war hinted at between humans and apes in "Rise" will come full frontal in "War For the Planet of the Apes." The just released 30 second Teaser wets our appetites with Cesar proclaiming "You must go before fighting begins. War has begun."
Matt Reeves is back as director. Plot seems to be unknown on IMDB, but Wikipedia seems to have gathered enough information for some kind of route as to where this movie is going:
Following the events of "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" Caesar and his ape colony are embroiled in a battle with an army of humans. When the apes suffer heavy losses, Caesar wrestles with his darker instincts as he resolves to avenge his kind. The battle pits Caesar against the humans' leader, a ruthless Colonel, in an encounter that will determine the fate of their species and Earth's future."