Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes Trailer: 5 Key Things We Learned

2. No More Franco

In the last film, James Franco played Will Rodman, a scientist at the biotechnology company Gen-Sys, who was developing a cure to Alzheimer's called ALZ-112. Much of the driving force of that film, aside from Will's research and animal testing, is his relationship with Caesar. He saves Caesar when he's very young, and takes him from the lab into his home. There he raises Caesar as almost a surrogate son, and it's their relationship that's tested throughout the film. Caesar's choice in the end, after sparking the ape revolution in San Francisco, is to flee into the Redwoods and abandon his past life. This left a huge question mark as to the future of Franco's character, and many assumed he'd be back for the sequel, fighting for humanity and ultimately going head-to-head against Caesar. Unfortunately for Franco, this isn't the case, and he's been replaced by a whole new cast (except Serkis, of course), most notably by Gary Oldman and Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty). Though Franco headlined the first film, Andy Serkis was the true star of that movie. According to Franco himself, who spoke with MTV News last December, he did have a small part in the sequel before Rupert Wyatt left the production:

I was going to be a small part of the next one. There was a moment when Rupert Wyatt was going to direct the second one. A lot of the human characters that were in the first movie were dead in the sequel that Rupert was going to direct. But there was one scene, between Caesar and my character, maybe even just like on a video that was left behind, but then a lot of things happened, like Tom Rothman who was a big part of the first movie, left. Now Rupert's not a part of it so I don't know. My guess is I won't be in it. Nobody's talked to me since Rupert left.

We don't necessarily need to see more of Franco's character, especially with a near-decade gap between the films and a new band of human survivors to focus on. Jason Clarke is a great actor, and will likely be a more interesting lead than Franco, whose character most likely died as a result of the pandemic that wiped out the rest of our species.