Given that **Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes **overcame reboot scepticism to end up as one of last year’s big blockbuster delights, a sequel was all but guaranteed. So it came to pass; with 20th Century Fox locking down performance capture guru / ape actor extraordinaire Andy Serkis into a new deal and getting other elements set up. The embryonic film is now going through a typical sequel convulsion, with Contagion writer Scott Z Burns hired to craft the latest draft of the script.
While few details are known about the story just yet, we do know that it will continue the plot kicked off at the end of Rise, with the apes now further established on their way to becoming the new rulers of Earth. How far along remains to be seen.
Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa have worked on the first draft, and the job will now be handed to Burns, which makes sense given his Contagion experience, since the movie also introduced another crucial element in the simian uprising: a virulent plague that began spreading through humanity and slowly wiping us out. But we’d predict Silver and Jaffa will still be involved in some way, especially as they were replaced several times during the torturous process of getting the first movie to the screen, and yet ended up in charge of the shooting draft.
Very little else is locked in at this point beyond Serkis, but director Rupert Wyatt is also likely to return whenever the movie is ready to shoot.