Matt_Reeves

Wait! I am asking him right now!

So I wanted to shoot the film in anamorphic 2.35:1. But we couldn't do that, because of 3D. Because in 3D the lenses have to match perfectly and they are only now coming up with 3D matched lenses that will allow you to shoot 2.35:1. And the reason I wanted to shoot anamorphic, 2.35:1 was the aspect ratio but also because the depth of field is more shallow, and I think makes for a more intimate and realistic visual approach. And when it turned out that I could not shoot anamorphic, the only way to shoot with the kind of depth of field that I wanted was to shoot in 1.85:1. Because (and this is so technical) but in order to shoot super 35, which is NON-anamorphic, I would have had to have used wider lenses, which would have made for a different kind of depth of field than I wanted. So I shot 1.85:1 so I could get the kind of depth of field that I wanted.

And it would have cost more money, probably, to shoot the film in anamorphic and render the ape effects - it would have been more expensive. And actually no, because they rebuilt everything from the ground up for Ceasar to make it better. WETA sort of makes an overall deal, and tries to give you the best value they can give you, but there were 1,000 artists working on the film, and the overhead for that is basically a small village, so it works out to roughly around somewhere to $50-60,000 per 5 seconds of a shot of apes. Broadly, broadly.

One of the things i find exciting about the Apes universe is knowing that the 68 film is the trajectory that we are moving toward. And what I loved about RISE, and what I wanted to do in DAWN, was to continue Ceasar's story. And for me the exciting story to tell is about Ceasar as the seminal mythic figure in early Ape history, that he is like their Moses, and I think that the Ape story is one that will be a mythic extension of that, and there will be future Ceasars, it's a generational story, and the question is - how do we get from the world of RISE and DAWN to the world of the 68 film which is so radically different? And the chapters of that story are the chapters I am interested in telling, and that's why I came onboard.

Well, I really don't know. I hope the next big trend is emphasis on story and characters that you care, about to be honest.

HAHAHA! I loved what Rupert did. And Rupert had left the film before I was asked to do it, so I had no qualms about doing it because I knew he wasn't going to be doing it. And I had been a lifelong Planet of the Apes fan, LOVED Rise, and was very excited to do it. And as far as Cloverfield, I think Hud would be very sad to know that you wanted him to die.