Owen Teague Starring in New ‘Planet of the Apes’ Movie

Owen Teague as Harold Lauder of the CBS All Access series ‘The Stand.’ Photo Cr: Robert Falconer/CBS ©2020 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Don’t expect Owen Teague to demand that any “damn dirty” apes get their “paws” off him in the next iteration of the ‘Planet of the Apes’ movie franchise. Because he’s playing the lead simian.

Since Disney bought 20th Century Fox, the studio has been looking to keep the successful ‘Apes’ franchise going following the most recent trilogy.

‘The Maze Runner’ director Wes Ball landed the job of handling the next film in the series, and since jumping aboard in 2019, he’s been writing the script and figuring out how to follow in Matt Reeves’ footsteps, working with VFX experts to design the various ape characters and more.

This July, he kicked off the extensive casting process required to full the main roles and according to Deadline, Teague impressed the director and studio bods with his audition, leading to a swift deal to play the primary ape.

Ball’s search is ongoing for people to play other Apes and the scattered human survivors as the story continues, though exactly what that will be is a mystery for now as all involved are keeping the plot a strict secret.

It’s no surprise that Disney would view the ‘Apes’ films as an important asset in its stable – originally adapted from Pierre Boulle’s novel, the 1968 original film featured Charlton Heston as astronaut George Taylor, who crash lands on a mysterious planet where intelligent apes rule and savage humans are their slaves.

1968’s ‘Planet of the Apes.’

That movie ends with one of the biggest and most famous twists in science fiction history (spoiler alert for those who have not watched it and somehow don’t know): the planet is Earth in the far future, where mankind has ruined civilization and apes have risen to dominate.

‘Planet of the Apes’ was a big hit, spawning a franchise of several follow-up films and a TV series.

In 2011, Fox started charting how humans fell with ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ directed by Rupert Wyatt, which switched the origin for mankind’s problems to a virus spreading across the globe. Andy Serkis donned performance capture gear to play main ape Caesar.

Reeves took over the franchise and moved it to even more success with ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ and ‘War for the Planet of the Apes’, which continued Caesar’s story.

Whatever name the new movie carries will likely extend Caesar’s legacy (second spoiler alert: he dies at the end of ‘War’) and show the next evolution of the apes’ rise to power.

As for Teague, he saw success with two Stephen King adaptations, playing a bully in the ‘It’ movies and nabbing a role in the latest TV version of ‘The Stand’. He’ll be back on screens in Netflix thriller ‘Reptile’ and Nicole Holofcener’s next film, ‘Beth & Don.’

Owen Teague as Harold Lauder of the CBS All Access series ‘The Stand.’ Photo Cr: Robert Falconer/CBS ©2020 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.