This is an excerpt from the interview. Please follow the link for the full conversation.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY:
The film bears a slight similarity to Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, the fourth film in Apes series. Did you use that film as a signpost for Rise?
RICK JAFFA:
Not in the beginning! We laid out the story and pitched the idea to Fox, and had gotten hired, and okayed to write and produce this thing. It was at that point we went back and started studying the old movies. We already had the movie laid out. I think some of the connections to Conquest are on purpose, but others are coincidental. “Unlikely character becoming a leader and leading his people to freedom” — it’s also a Moses story.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY:
If this is the Moses story — a leader taking his people to freedom — then do you see the potential sequel as a kind of Joshua story, with the Apes fighting wars and conquering the world?
AMANDA SILVER:
I’m touching wood, because I’m superstitious! We definitely have ideas for where the sequel — plural, where the sequels — would take us. And those were kind of built into –
RICK JAFFA:
— the construction of the narrative already. There hasn’t been an official discussion yet about a sequel, because I think everyone still doesn’t want to jinx where we are. But we definitely have ideas.
AMANDA SILVER:
When we started this, we knew that this movie would stand on its own, and we designed it that way. But if it didn’t stand on its own, we pictured a trilogy that would start with this movie.