Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has been a huge success both critically and commercially, topping the box office in both the UK and America.The Fox studio has created a movie event bigger than its 2011 predecessor and has successfully shifted the lead focus away from a main human character to his ape counterpart - an impossibility some may have thought when the franchise lost Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ lead, James Franco.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and its impressive CGI has topped the box office

However, as cinema-goers bask in the film's enjoyability, producers are not resting on their laurels.

Rumours are circling that a Planet of the Apes 3 will be released in 2016 with director Matt Reeves taking the helm for a second time.

More: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes review

But what are the possibilities with this sequel film? Where will we find Caesar and his colony and what will the human population be doing to ensure their survival?

While both Rise and Dawn have been excellent stand-alone films in their own right, they can also be plausibly viewed as ‘chapters’ in a long ape game. And it seems the long ape game is to merge this series of films to the 1968 original, in which a group of astronauts crash land on a planet in the distant future on which intelligent apes are the dominant species.

This was discussed by director, Matt Reeves, when he spoke to Flickering Myth.com: "To me there are many chapters of this mythic ape journey towards the original ’68 movie," he said.

So what about the bits in between, of which Apes 3 will surely fall into? We must assume that there will be another conflict between the apes and the humans. We must also assume there will be many more if there are many years to cover between Apes 3 and the original Planet counterpart. But how will this conflict play out?

Next page: how will Caesar fare as commander-in-chief of an army he doesn't want?