The cast of the upcoming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes got a little bigger today. Kodi Smit-McPhee, who previously worked with Dawn director Matt Reeves on the vampire thriller Let Me In, has been cast as one of the new human leads in the new blockbuster.
Deadline, which reported the news of the deal, doesn't say what kind of part the young actor will be playing, but notes how busy he has been of late. Last year he lent his voice to the lead character in the stop-motion masterpiece ParaNorman, but is currently filming Jack Paltrow's Young Ones and only recently completed work on projects including Carlo Carlei's Romeo and Juliet and Ari Folman's The Congress. He is the third actor to join the cast of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes after Zero Dark Thirty's Jason Clarke signed on earlier this week. Andy Serkis will be reprising his role as Caesar the chimpanzee from the first film.
Fox has already dated the film to be released on May 23, 2014, so the film should be flying into production fairly soon. We still don't have any idea what the movie is going to be about, but the cast that they've lined up so far is exciting. Smit-McPhee's may be young and his resume may be short, but he's already shown some serious skills , including his previous collaboration with Reeves. Let's hope the script ends up being worthy of the talent both in front of and behind the camera.
