Do not adjust your TikTok – those are indeed apes on horseback on Venice Beach, Los Angeles. Well, not really. We're going to assume they're people dressed up, and it all seems to be tied into the upcoming movie Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.
As you can see in the video below, Venice Beach was populated with apes riding horses across the sand. It's a pretty striking sight. Just what they're getting up to beyond looking scary remains to be seen.
The movie is set around 300 years after the events of War for the Planet of the Apes, which was released back in 2017. It follows a young woman called Mae (played by The Witcher star Freya Allan) who joins forces with the chimpanzee Noa to try and stop a tyrannical leader named Proximus Caesar.
"He's the baddie," Proximus Caesar actor Kevin Durand told GamesRadar+. "But it's coming down to, you know, homosapiens or apes and obviously he's on the side of the apes, so he’s willing to do whatever needs to happen, by any means necessary, to ensure a future for apekind. From the perspective of the narrative, he's definitely the baddie but yeah, when you watch the movie, you're like, 'Well, was he really that bad?'"
Along with Allan and Durand, the film's cast includes William H. Macy, Dichen Lachman, and Owen Teague.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes releases in UK cinemas on May 9, and in US theaters on May 10. Fill out your watchlist with our guide to all of this year's major movie release dates.
