Gary Oldman is one of those actors that, as soon as he’s cast, the stock of the film rises by a factor of 10. The actor’s credits include The Dark Knight Trilogy , The Fifth Element (and my personal favorite) Lost in Space . Now, he reveals a bit about his character in the upcoming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes sequel.
WARNING : Very spoiler-ish info coming ahead…be warned.
Oldman describes him as someone who’s leading a group of humans after a virus causes social decay and the population is left in a post-apocalyptic state. Inevitably, they run across a certain pack of primates, who have a score to settle by this point in the film. “…they’re sort of survivors, and he was a police officer, so he’s more of the kind of elected leader of this group. And they need power and there’s a power station and some of my people go out to see if it’s operational, if it’s still out there, and then they discover that there’s a whole community of apes living there. We believed they were all completely fire-bombed and wiped out…” says Oldman.
Dawn is a sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes (starring James Franco and Andy Serkis), that sets up the events of the original films. Fortunately, Oldman says Director Matt Reeves is looking to do more with this reboot/sequel than just milk the series. “Matt Reeves was more interested in not just keeping the franchise alive but he wanted to make it more of a human story, he wanted to explore what had happened and keep it more focused to the human side of it before the story becomes the ‘ Planet of the Apes ‘ as we know it from the first one, from the original.” He states.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes hits theaters on July 11 th .