Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes: Oldman Drops SPOILERS

Out doing publicity for the "RoboCop," remake Gary Oldman has surprisingly revealed some key info to MTV regarding his character Dreyfus in "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes".

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD:

"He's sort of the designated leader of this community, who were sort of lucky enough to survive the simian flu, that disease, and the ensuing social uprising from it. So they're sort of survivors of a community, and he was a police officer. He's known in the community, so he's more of the elected leader. We need power, and there's a power station, and some of my people go out to see if it's operational, if it's still out there, and they discover that there's a whole community of apes living there. We believed they were all completely fire-bombed and wiped out. He's experienced a great loss, personally, and there's only one answer to him, which is to wipe them out. I see him as sort of the hero of the piece."

 

The film will continue the action from Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The film is set a 15 years after Rise's post-credits sequence where a devastating virus has wiped out much of humanity. Caesar now leads a growing nation of genetically evolved apes which is threatened by a band of human survivors. A fragile peace proves short-lived, as both sides are brought to the brink of a war.

"Rise" helmer Rupert Wyatt chose not to return reportedly due to the fact that the director wasn't comfortable with making the May 23rd 2014 release date the studio had originally announced. "Cloverfield" director Matt Reeves takes over.

Some have said that the 2011 film had human characters  that were decidedly less interesting (an opinion that I don't share) than the CG apes. Oldman promises that director Reeves aims to address that concern  in the sequel:

"Matt Reeves was more interested in not just keeping the franchise alive, but he wanted to make it more of a human story. He wanted to explore what had happened, and keep it more focused on the human side of it, before the story becomes the Planet of the Apes as we know it from the original [Planet of the Apes] ."
 
Rise star James Franco does not return instead--Zero Dark Thirty actor Jason Clarke Keri Russell Andy Serkis, Oldman Judy Greer and Kodi Smit-McPhee star

Mark Bomback ("Live Free or Die Hard," "Unstoppable") is set to rework Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa's script. Bombeck is expected to turn in something more suited to the new director's style. This is Deja Vu On 'Rise' Silver & Jaffa wrote the initial script and then Bomback did an uncredited script rewrite.

"Contagion" scribe Scott Z. Burns took a crack at the "Dawn" script as well

Peter Chernin Dylan Clark Silver and Jaffa will produce.

The film is now targeting a July 11th 2014 release.