Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Actor Believes ‘There Is a Chance’ [SPOILER] Didn’t Die

Warning! The Following Contains Spoilers for the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

Kevin Durand absolutely believes “there is a chance” his character, Proximus Caesar, survived. Without giving too much away, the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ antagonist seemingly falls to his death near the end of the latest entry in the Planet of the Apes franchise. However, like Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) in Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker, or both Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) in The Matrix Resurrections, there are always those characters who will cheat death. Durand said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter:

“Does Proximus crawl out of that ocean?
You didn’t see his body.
You just saw a big splash.
He’s a gigantic, magnificent creature, and given the density of that beast, did he make it? I don’t know…
but I think that there is a chance [Proximus survives] in Apes.”

And if someone were to ask Durand about Proximus Caesar, the actor is still likely to take sides with the so-called villain of the story. Durand explained his point-of-view behind Proximus and the ape’s motivations in the same sit-down:

“He knew that apedom would end up in cages.
They’d end up on plates, being eaten; they’d be slaughtered. They would also be experimented on in laboratories, and by any means necessary, as quickly as he could,
he had to do what he had to do.
He had to get all the apes of the land to his kingdom, so that they could achieve this goal of getting this information.
I don’t think he enjoys that he’s had to do what he’s had to do, but he just doesn’t have a choice.”

Proximus Caesar Had Good Reasons for Fearing Humans

Depending on one’s own unique point of view, was Proximus Caesar really the villain? It’s an interesting question and subject for debate, but clearly director Wes Ball’s sci-fi adventure depicts Kevin Durand’s character as the antagonist of the story. However, Proximus Caesar had good reasons to be wary of human beings, according to Durand. The actor said in the same interview:

“You know what we’re like.
We’re greedy, and we’re so selfish as a race.
Look at the state of the world since the beginning of our time here, and it’s never stopped.
We’re always killing each other over the dumbest things:
territory, interpretation of dogma. So, I just dug into that, and

I never thought of him as being bad. I just thought of him being a man on a mission or a bonobo on a mission.”

Clearly, Proximus Caesar uses the words of the real Caesar (Andy Serkis), who lived hundreds of years before the events encompassing Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, to further his own cause and the resulting empire. Durand added:

“It all comes down to interpretation and the perspective of the narrative.
I never think,
‘Oh, he’s a bad ape
or a bad dude.’ I was like,
‘Why is he doing this?’
And, to me, he was always
an incredibly smart ape that could perceive things far beyond any other of his kind could.”

At the time of this writing, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes ranks No. 2 at the box office with a worldwide total of $240 million (per Box Office Mojo) against a production budget of $120 million to $160 million.