By Rudie Obias | 7 years ago

There are many reasons why movie release dates get shifted around. Sometimes movies need more time to complete, as in the case of World War Z, or they would benefit a higher box office gross if moved, as with Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium. However, for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, it’s a reminder that Hollywood has lost one of its brightest stars.

As reported on ScreenRant, Twentieth Century Fox has moved up the release date for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes up one week to July 11, 2014. Fox moved Dawn to fill the void, if and when Universal delays Fast and Furious 7 due to the sudden death of Paul Walker at the end of November. The production for that latter film is now up in the air considering that it was on hiatus during the Thanksgiving break and was a little more than halfway finished. It’s unclear if Fast & Furious 7 director James Wan will try to finish the film with the footage they already shot with Walker, or if they will start over from the ground up with a new story.

Dawn will now benefit from a release date that will see very little competition at the box office. Fast & Furious 7 is a big summer blockbuster, so no other studio wanted to go head-to-head with that franchise. Now that Dawn will open one week earlier, its only competition will be from Transformers: Age of Extinction, which will be in its second week of release.

Meanwhile, director Matt Reeves recently announced that the new trailer for Dawn will premiere on December 18 at 6 a.m. PST. This will be the first time footage from the film will be made available since only a limited number of people got to watch footage from the sequel film at San Diego Comic-Con this past July. Reeves also released a series of new posters for the film featuring a few of its characters, namely the apes Caesar, Maurice, and Rocket.

The new posters look great! Caesar looks menacing and completely different from how he looked in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. He’s also featured with the same war paint that was also in the first production image of Dawn released back in July. It’ll be interesting to see if Fox will do the same type of posters for the human characters in the sequel film too.

Dawn takes place eight years after the events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The mysterious Simian Flu virus has wiped out a majority of the human population, while the ape population continues to evolve rapidly. The film’s structure will feature two storylines: one following a small group of human survivalists trying to find a cure, and the other focusing on Caesar’s dominance over the apes. It’s believed the two storylines will come together for an explosive climax.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes will star Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Nick Thurston, Toby Kebbell, Karin Konoval, Terry Notary, Judy Greer, and Andy Serkis as Caesar. Matt Reeves (Let Me In, Cloverfield) and screenwriter Mark Bomback (The Wolverine) rewrote Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver’s script. Jaffa and Silver also wrote Rise of the Planet of the Apes‘ original screenplay.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes will hit theaters everywhere on July 11, 2014, in 3D.