The Maze Runner director Wes Ball was slated to direct a live-action adaptation of Harbinger for Paramount Pictures, but Deadline has reported that he’s been forced to step down in order to focus on the new Planet of the Apes movie.
Based on the Valiant comic-book series, the Harbinger movie focuses on “a group of super-powered teens who rebel against the corporation that tried to harness their abilities for their own ends.” Thankfully, the studio already has a replacement in mind as they’re in talks with Paul Downs Colaizzo to direct and rewrite the script. Colaizzo is best known for writing and directing Brittany Runs a Marathon starring Jillian Bell.
Wes Ball has been attached the direct the new Planet of the Apes movie for almost three years. Given how successful the recent trilogy (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and War for the Planet of the Apes) was for 20th Century Studios, they’re obviously keen on returning to the franchise. According to Deadline’s Justin Kroll, the studio is reportedly “very high” on the script for the movie and are searching for the star of the film, with the hope that it could lead to a new trilogy. Production could start between late summer and early fall of 2022.
Wes Ball has previously said that although the new Planet of the Apes movie will be charting its own course, it will still honour the previous movies.
Those last three movies are one of the great trilogies we have in modern movie history. They are just so well done. They honored the original movies they sprang from, the Charlton Heston movies, but they grounded it in a modern sensibility and it just worked. Caesar is one of the great movie characters that we’ll have throughout time. So what do you do to follow that up, right? At the same time, I wasn’t interested in doing a part four either. We want to also do our own thing.
Ball continued, saying that they “have a way of staying in the universe that was created before us, but we’re also opening ourselves up in being able to do some really cool new stuff.” The Planet of the Apes movies are some of my favourites, so I can’t see what Wes Ball has cooked up for this new installment.
