His legs are bowed, his arms outstretched. His shoulders are back and his chest is a little bit puffed out as he gazes off into the distance, a lush and mountainous backdrop behind him. If you use your imagination real hard, you can almost see the silhouette of an ape in this photo. Andy Serkis is Caesar in the above image from the set of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
The image above comes from Empire Online (view a bigger version of it there) and shows Serkis dressed in his motion capture suit on the set of the anticipated sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Just as the recently released trailer reminded us of the intimidating, animalistic side of Caesar, this photo does just as well to remind us that there’s an almost human side to him there too, when taking into consideration Caesar’s advanced level of intelligence. As for his facial expression, is he angry or is he just trying to see something in the distance? It's hard to say. Though there's no mistaking the menacing glare in this screen shot of the ape's face:
Don’t mess with Caesar.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes left off with Caesar leading his fellow apes into the forest after a major standoff on the bridge. As the trailer indicates, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes picks up a decade or so later, as Caesar’s nation of genetically evolved apes continues to grow, but comes under the threat of a band of human survivors of the devastating virus plagued the earth. You may recall the start of that sickness spreading at the end of the last film. It seems humanity has been left in chaos, both from the disease and strife that ensued as a result. Check out the trailer to see just how bad things have gotten, and get a glimpse of a very severe looking Caesar (or Andy Serkis in the "after" phase of his transformation") below:
Empire says they’ll have "much more about apes and their daybreak" in their next issue (both physical and digital), which hits shelves (literally or figuratively) tomorrow (December 31).
We’ll have a bit longer to wait for the actual movie, however. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes arrives in theaters July 11, 2014.
Directed by Matt Reeves, the cast includes Serkis, as well as Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Toby Kebbell and Kodi Smith-McPhee.
