James Franco Doesn't Expect To Appear In 'Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes'

Before Rupert Wyatt's Rise of the Planet of the Apes was released, most people probably thought of it of a James Franco movie. That was not the case after seeing the finished product. Apes was unquestionably Andy Serkis' series. Franco may have been at the center of the first movie but when telling a story of a planet slowly but surely being taken over by an intelligent race of apes, the humans become decreasingly important.

Franco has now been quoted as saying he was expecting to do a small cameo in 2014's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes when Wyatt was directing. However Wyatt's long since left the project, making with for Matt Reeves, and Franco said he hasn't heard from anyone since that happened and now doesn't expect to appear. How will that work? Read his quote and speculate after the jump.

Franco was speaking to MTV about a bunch of his smaller projects when he was asked about the sequel:

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 [former Fox co-chairman] 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.

Reeves' film is still in pre-production so there's always a chance Franco comes back, but odds are if he hasn't hear from the studio, he's not necessary.

Depending on how you look at it, this makes both perfect sense and no sense at all. On the one hand, Caesar will eventually have to get away from his emotional attachment to Will (Franco) so he can continue to take over the planet. However, if you're making a film franchise and have a major star interested in appearing, why not tie up his storyline in some satisfying way? I'd imagine if Franco does not appear, the script will mention his between-film passing. Or, even more intriguingly, maybe save him for a third film to combat an even more powerful Caesar?

What do you think about this? How would you deal with it?