Boom! Studios, which have had several Planet of the Apes tie-in titles over the years, now turn their sights toward this summer’s hit movie — with a new full-color comic book miniseries titled, appropriately enough, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. “Bridging the 10-year gap between the Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes films, fans will bear witness to the fall of humanity and the rise of Caesar’s civilization. While the apes of the world have yet to advance as a species, Caesar must find a way to unify in them to one cause. On the other side of the country, Malcolm must venture into the decaying Americas with his family to find a cure for the plague slowly killing his wife, Rita. World powers will shift as civilizations collapse and rise.” Written by Michael Moreci (Curse, Hoax Hunters) and illustrated by Dan McDaid (Mind the Gap),  issue #1 of the the new Dawn is available now.

image c. 2014 Boom! Studios

At the 39th Annual Annie Awards, movies featuring anthropomorphic animal characters took many top awards.

Rango was the big winner, with four awards, including Best Animated Feature. The movie with the most nominations, Kung Fu Panda 2, only won two, but one of them was Best Director for first time theatrical director Jennifer Yuh Nelson.

Other such movies with wins include Rise of the Planet of the Apes, winning Character Animation (in a Live Action Feature), Winnie the Pooh, which won Storyboarding, and Rio, for Character Animation (in an Animated Feature).

There are three big movie awards furries should be watching, or, at the very least, have somebody watching for them: the Oscars, the Annies and the Ursa Majors.

This year looks to be interesting in all three awards. With Pixar flopping and all sorts of new rules, the Best Animated Feature Oscar may be a surprise this year. The flop also affects the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature. Finally, the fandom’s own Ursa Majors’s Best Anthropomorphic Movie will see something entirely new; a movie made by the fandom.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes hits theaters in the U.S. and Canada on August 5, rejuvenating the earlier series.

The plot centers around James Franco as Will Rodman, a scientist developing a cure for Alzheimer's by running tests on apes. The first test subject, a chimpanzee named Caesar, is genetically modified by the cure into a new breed — one gifted with greater sentience.

While Caesar's cognitive abilities grow to surpass his human counterparts, he is still viewed by most as an animal, and is treated like Rodman's pet. In retaliation, Caesar spreads the cure to millions of other apes, who rally to plot a revolution. Rodman must stop the war before apes overthrow man as top of the food chain.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is meant to be a platform to build future movies on. Director Rupert Wyatt said:

To me, I can think of all sorts of sequels to this film, but this is just the beginning.

This movie is no mere remake of the older series, but a new conceptualization of the same idea. Special effects in film-making have also made immense progress since the originals; instead of plastic-looking men and women with prosthetic make-up plastered to their face, the viewer will be able to experience more aesthetically-pleasing and realistic CGI effects.