When Dawn of the Planet of the Apes hit theaters in 2014, it came with a little mystery at the end of its credits; not a grand scene teasing the next film but a simple audio cue. It’s not too obvious, but if you were listening you may have heard a shift of rubble and some heavy breathing, as if the character Koba had perhaps survived his extensive fall in the film and would return for a sequel.
When we visited the set of that upcoming sequel, War for the Planet of the Apes, earlier this year, I asked producer Dlyan Clark about that audio cue and if it actually meant anything for the film.
“I can tell you 100% Koba is not alive in this movie,” Clark said. “There was talk (about bringing Koba back). Matt (Reeves) and I we were a little bit bummed because we fell in love with Toby Kebbell. Koba is a great character. He was great for the entertainment, he was great for Caesar. Caesar loved Koba, he was his brother, until the human’s showed up and Koba could not contain his rage and everything was lost. We loved what that said about the world, but we also loved what it said emotionally about these two characters. We were really sad to see him in visual effect turnover meetings tumble down 300 feet and die in a fiery ball of hell.’
“And yeah there were conversations like, ‘They wouldn’t have done that to Darth Vader.’… So we were like ‘God, did we make a mistake killing Koba?’ Again, we have to look at each other in the eyes and say ‘Could anybody survive that fall? For real?’ And the answer is ‘No,’ and then we were sad.”
The upcoming War for the Planet of the Apes will feature a very human antagonist in the form of “The Colonial” played by Woody Harrelson, though he may have some ape help on his side. To find out more, read our full set report on the film by clicking here.
