'War For The Planet Of The Apes': First Behind-The-Scenes Footage Arrives With New Contest Announcement

It's going to be a while before we get to War for the Planet of the Apes, but in the meantime director Matt Reeves has shared a first look at some behind-the-scenes footage from the movie. Better yet, for the truly devoted among you, he's also opened up a contest for one lucky fan to be in the movie as a mo-cap character.

Check out the War for the Planet of the Apes behind-the-scenes footage, and find out how to enter the War for the Planet of the Apes contest after the jump.

Watch director Reeves and star Andy Serkis announce the War for the Planet of the Apes contest below. The video includes a few small snippets of new behind-the-scenes footage as well. There isn't a whole lot to see, but that isn't surprising considering War for the Planet of the Apes only began shooting a month ago and won't hit theaters for close to two years.

To enter the contest, shoot a video of yourself doing your most life-like ape impersonation, and upload it to YouTube with the video description "This video was made for the #WarForTheApesContest." Clips must be 30 seconds or less and submitted in English, with no branded gear in sight, and U.S. entrants are required to have a valid passport. You can get full details on the War for the Planet of the Apes contest at ApesContest.com.

If you've been following along with the franchise so far, you likely already have some idea of what to expect from the new film. Here's Reeves talking about War for the Planet of the Apes in broad terms last year:

As this story continues, we know that war is not avoided by the end of DAWN. That is going to take us into the world of what he is grappling with. Where he is going to be thrust into circumstances that he never, ever wanted to deal with, and was hoping he could avoid. And now he is right in the middle of it. The things that happen in that story test him in huge ways, in the ways in which his relationship with Koba haunts him deeply. It's going to be an epic story. I think you've probably read that I sort of described it where in the first film was very much about his rise from humble beginnings to being a revolutionary. The second movie was about having to rise to the challenge of being a great leader in the most difficult of times. This is going to be the story that is going to cement his status as a seminal figure in ape history, and sort of leads to an almost biblical status. He is going to become like a mythic ape figure, like Moses.

Besides Serkis, Judy Greer is back as Caesar's wife Cornelia and Karen Konoval as Caesar's friend Maurice. Steve Zahn plays a new ape character, and Woody Harrelson and Gabriel Chavarria are among the human cast. War for the Planet of the Apes arrives July 14, 2017.