'Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes' Is The First Film In Envisioned Trilogy

As audiences walk out of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, it's impossible to not be thinking about where the story goes next. The script by married screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver ends on a pretty massive cliffhanger, and then does it again a few minutes into the credits. If you haven't seen the movie yet, I won't get into specifics now but, it's pretty obvious the story can continue and that's exactly what the writers (along with director Rupert Wyatt) had in mind.

Jaffa and Silver spoke to Entertainment Weekly about this and though they were quick to say nothing is certain yet, they let it be known the film is specifically structured to – possibly – be the first in a brand new Apes trilogy. Read the quotes and some speculation after the break.

Here is the discussion in question from the Entertainment Weekly interview. Head over there to read a bit more from the screenwriters and know that, afterwards, we're going to discuss spoilers.

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 –

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.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.

Again, spoiler talk a-comin.

The next film would most likely focus on the spread of the virus humans contract from the 113 that's created at GenSys. What I found to be a little off, though, is if the human race is being infected by this contagious and fatal disease that apes are immune to, doesn't that create a very straight forward line linking the end of the human race and the rise of the apes? Humans all die, apes live, end of story.

Plenty of story can be filled as generations pass before all the apes are speaking, intellectual and running the planet with little to no memory of humans, as seen in the eventual end game of the 1968 original, but it seems like the smart play for Caesar in a subsequent film would just be to hang in the woods until everyone is dead.

Then again, we know that Will, played by James Franco, is still alive and fond of Caesar. He'll probably try to save the humans by finding out why the apes are immune. Plus as others apes become more intelligent, Caesar will certainly have to assert his dominance to hold onto the leadership role. In addition, there's always the seeds planted about the Icarus ship and more. So there are plenty of ways two sequels can go.

What do you think will happen in the next film, let alone another two films? When, or if, do you think 20th Century Fox will hire Silver and Jaffa to begin writing the new script?