Freya Allen is back in her role as Ciri in The Witcher Season 4, but it’s her 2024 sci-fi adventure that’s finding new success on streaming a year later. In 2024, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was released in theaters and garnered rave reviews from fans and critics alike.
As of Nov. 15, the Wes Ball-directed Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has climbed up to the No. 3 spot on HBO Max, per FlixPatrol. It’s currently in third place among all movies streaming on HBO Max, just behind Materialists and Elf. Billed as a precursor to the 1968 original Planet of the Apes, the 2024 film expanded the lore with a standalone film. The movie made $397.3 million at the global box office against a budget of about $160 million.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is set in a dystopian timeline in which humanity has collapsed and apes dominate. The film focuses on its two protagonists, Noa (Owen Teague), heir to an ape clan, and Mae (Allen), an intelligent scavenger human. The film is certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with an 80% critic score based on more than 300 reviews. Its audience score is a respectable 77%. One reviewer on the site called Kingdom “absolutely perfect.” Another said that the film is “a visually spectacular and technically stunning sequel that expands the franchise’s world. Director Wes Ball delivers a breathtaking adventure with impressive visual effects.”
What’s Next for the Franchise?
Mae is brought to a stronghold by apes as a captive in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.Image via 20th Century Studios
The film’s director, Wes Ball, has been tapped to adapt The Legend of Zelda video game franchise into a movie, and is also working on a sequel to Kingdom. In February 2025, Ball gave an update on the status of the next Kingdom sequel. At that time, Ball said that work was being done on the sequel, which is set for a 2027 theatrical release. He also touched on the future of the Planet of the Apes franchise.
“Yeah, we’re talking about it. That’s all I can say, really. But I’m greedy,” Ball said. “I’ve got multiple things that I’m playing with right now. I’d love to do all of them, but there are so many cool places that we could go with the next one. We have these ideas of where we want it to go. Things are set up in this movie that you don’t even realize are setups.
“But movie two is almost always the best one of the trilogy. That’s the way it works. That’s where all the drama is, where all the conflict is, and that’s where this really dark stuff happens, or really consequential stuff,” he said. “And this character of Noa and how much he has changed by the events of this movie, the fact that we set up all these characters and we’ve kind of set this runway for where ultimately we could go, we have in our minds, and it’s super exciting,” Ball concluded.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is streaming on HBO Max.
Release Date
May 10, 2024
Runtime
145 minutes
Director
Wes Ball
Writers
Josh Friedman, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
Producers
Amanda Silver, Jason Reed, Joe Hartwick Jr., Rick Jaffa
