What a wonderful day! Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is out now in theaters, marking the beginning of a bold new chapter for the Planet of the Apes reboot series. Kingdom is the tenth movie in the long-running Apes franchise, and the fourth in this current run of films that began with 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
The Planet of the Apes movies have a long and winding history, with different installments set all over the timeline and an emphasis on circular storytelling to make sure it all still adds up. It can be a little confusing to keep track of where the Apes movies fall in relation to one another. We've laid the entire franchise's timeline out below to make it a little easier to parse:
Original Planet of the Apes timeline
- Planet of the Apes (1968) — Astronaut George Taylor lands on the Planet of the Apes aka Earth in 3978.
- Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) — The film is set in 3955, but since it's a direct continuation of the first movie, it actually takes place in 3978. Don't ask me to make that make sense; it was a different era in Hollywood, and filmmakers could get away with wild discrepancies without fans berating them on the Internet.
- Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) — Three apes travel back in time to escape their dying world, and arrive on Earth in 1973.
- Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) — Set almost 20 years after Escape, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes takes place in an alternate 1991, where the U.S. is ruled by a fascist society that uses apes as slave labor. This is the first movie to star Caesar, the ape who would eventually serve as inspiration for the reboot series.
- Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) — More than a decade after Caesar leads his ape uprising in Conquest, we see how apes and humans have formed into a new type of society in Battle for the Planet of the Apes. It's set in 2003. There's also a brief framing story that shows how the legend of Caesar has been passed down through ape history. That takes place in 2670.
After the original five Apes movies, the next to be released was a reboot from director Tim Burton. Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes (2001) is a retelling of the original Apes movie with some different twists and turns. It takes place in the year 5021. The Burton reboot was critically panned and didn't spawn any sequels. It exists in a timeline all its own that isn't relevant to the rest of the franchise.
Planet of the Apes reboot timeline
That brings us to our current reboot series, which includes the new movie Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. These movies include a reimagining of the origin story for Caesar, the ape's first chieftain. So even though these movies are set after Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes, they're essentially an alternate version of the same events, in terms of the overall Apes mythos.
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) — The main events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes take place in 2019, where we see a young Caesar first rise to prominence as a leader of apes, as well as the beginnings of the plague that will eventually wipe out most of humanity.
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) — A decade after the events of Rise, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes sees Caesar and his apes endure their first diplomatic crisis with a nearby community of humans. It takes place in 2029.
- War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) — The last remnants of the United States army force apes into slave labor, and Caesar leads a violent uprising that finally ensures freedom for the apes. War for the Planet of the Apes takes place two years after Dawn, in 2031, and documents the final days of Caesar's life as well as a mutation in the global pandemic which robs humans of their ability to speak.
- Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) — Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes takes place 300 years after Caesar's death, which puts the main events of the story around the year 2331. It's a brand new chapter for the Apes universe, where ape society has developed to the point of advanced clans with different traditions and cultures. Humans are believed to be nearly extinct by this point in ape history, though there are some wandering, mute "herds" which still roam the wilds.
Hopefully this makes the somewhat confusing timeline of the Planet of the Apes movies a little easier to understand, so you can spend less time scratching your head and more time bingeing this fascinating movie franchise.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is out now in theaters!
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