Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes are ahead!
Within the current Planet of the Apes continuity, the Simian Flu Virus that increased the intelligence of apes all around the world also killed off a majority of the human population, and then caused the survivors to lose their ability to speak and the mentally devolve. So when Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, one of the most recent 2024 movie releases, picks up “many generations later,” all of humanity has become a feral species… or rather, that’s how it initially seemed.
Although it was spoiled ahead of Kingdom’s release that Freya Allen’s Mae could speak, it turns out she wasn’t a genetic fluke. In addition to William H. Macy’s Trevathan also retaining normal intelligence, by the end of the movie, it’s revealed that there are pockets of humanity that managed to avoid becoming animalistic. Following the latest Planet of the Apes movie’s release, I had the pleasure of interviewing producers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, and in addition to clarifying the twist ending, they also shared with me what they hope to explore with these humans if Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes gets sequels.
Where Things Stand With The Intelligent Humans
After bidding a tense farewell to Noa outside of his village, Mae traveled to a remote satellite base out in the desert and was greeted by Dichen Lachman’s character, Korina, who was wearing a hazmat suit. Mae handed Korina the decipher key that she retrieved from the vault containing the weaponry that Proximus Caesar had been so desperate to obtain, only to see his dreams dashed when Mae flooded it. Korina took the key deep into this facility, which was filled with other intelligent humans, and used it to reactivate a satellite array that allowed her and her allies to get in contact with another group of humans elsewhere in the United States.
Early on in my conversation with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, I asked if the takeaway from Korina wearing the hazmat suit was that there are humans in this world who have never been properly outside because of the virus, and Jaffa answered:
Yes, it is. It’s obviously clear that the virus has probably mutated itself out of existence, but the idea is that Mae and her companions that are referred to by Proximus in that dinner scene had experienced going out, were in some ways canaries in a coal mine. But by the end, there's still some kind of you know, safety considerations and worry about the virus.
Given that centuries have passed between War for the Planet of the Apes and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the fact that there are pockets of humanity that have survived with their intelligence intact, but consequently have never gotten to properly experience the outside world for fear of regressing like so many of our kind, is heartbreaking. The presence of Trevathan indicates there are humans the outside who are occasionally born “normal,” as Macy’s character didn’t seem to know about these underground societies.
But as Rick Jaffa noted, humans like Mae and Korina were worried about the virus, so the former and her compatriots, who were killed by Proximus Caesar’s forces, were essentially used to test the waters. Since Mae didn’t get sick, that means these communities that are descended from humans that hunkered down when the virus started spreading can now roam about freely.
Where Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes Sequels Could Take Humanity From Here
As of this writing, 20th Century Studios hasn’t announced a Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes sequel. However, back in June 2022, it was reported that this movie was intended to be the first entry in a new trilogy, and the opening weekend box office performance inspires hope that will happen, just like how Rise of the Planet of the Apes paved the way for Dawn and War. So with Kingdom (which is actually a great place to start the franchise) setting the stage for “normal” humans to start reestablishing themselves, I wondered what excited Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver the most about exploring these pockets of the old world if a sequel or two get the green light. Jaffa started off by saying:
Well, I think it's gonna be fun to see what these 300 years have done to shape human culture just as we explored it in Kingdom and, and saw what it done… how the Eagle Clan evolved, if you will, with no knowledge of Caesar, and then how Proximus’ world had evolved in a different direction after Caesar. So it's gonna be fun to experiment and play in that sandbox.
With human development having ground to a halt once the Simian Flu Virus spread, I definitely agree it will be interesting to see what kind of culture these humans grew up in within their confined living spaces, as well as how they react to their feral counterparts. But as Amanda Silver noted below, there’s also the intriguing prospect of these various communities finally coming together:
And on top of that, you get to see where they have been and then what's gonna happen next once they start to connect. So these different pockets of humans have been isolated from each other. What happens? How are they different from each other, these pockets, and what happens when they find each other? There’s a lot of story, there’s a lot of juice there.
But it isn’t just a matter of these pockets syncing up with one another. Mae told Noa that humanity deserved a second chance since they were once the dominant species, but Noa, having learned what life was like for apes before Caesar and the Simian Flu Virus, was skeptical about humans and apes being able to coexist. So similar to how War for the Planet of the Apes saw Caesar and his clan battling the Alpha-Omega militia, we may need to prepare for the possibility that humans and apes will go to war once again.
Be sure to read CinemaBlend’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes review and stay tuned to more coverage about the movie. All nine prior movies from this franchise can be streamed now with a Hulu subscription.
