After months and months of thinking about it, I finally realized that the real question was “Why not Cookie Rocket?”

Fox is thinking the same thing, because they’ve dropped a metric ton of Planet of the Apes news onto an unsuspecting citizenry who will soon be taken over by primates. For one, they’re committed to earnestly lobbying for Andy Serkis as Best Actor during awards season, and for two, they’ve signed him to “multiple future installments of the series.” Director Rupert Wyatt was already contractually on board for a second film, and it seems obvious that the success of the first did the heavy lifting of creating a new franchise out of an old one. A sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes is not far off.

As Russ Fischer smartly opines over at /film, Serkis may have also, or may also discuss doing second unit for the second film since he’s doing that on The Hobbit, and because the entire world would probably watch a movie directed by Caesar. On second thought, if the man playing the world’s smartest simian also directs the second unit for the movie, then the apes really have taken over.

Probably exactly what Fox wants.