Back in 2011, Rise of the Planet of the Apes opened with $54.8 million and went on to accumulate $481.8 million at the worldwide box office.  It made sense that Fox would want to move forward with two more films.  However, after Dawn of the Planet of the Apes kicked off its run with $72.6 million and took in a whopping $708 million worldwide, it seems as though a trilogy might not be enough anymore.

During a recent interview, Andy Serkis suggested that there’s a chance the series might not be capped at three films.  How many could there be?  Hit the jump to find out more.

Here’s what Serkis told MTV about the third installment while promoting the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Blu-ray release:

“To be honest, it’s very, very early in where we choose to drop our anchor in the next film, so it could be five years after the event. It could be the night after the events of where we left ‘Dawn,’ so it’s very difficult to know where the story is going right at this moment because it’s being written as we speak. I know part of the desire for Matt [Reeves] to do this next movie about continuing the enjoyment of seeing these apes evolve.”

And now here’s where he gets into the length of the series:

“It might be three films. It could be four. It could be five. Who knows? The journey will continue. It might not necessarily be summarized or completely fulfilled in this next one. The point being, eventually we know that we’re going to end up back at ‘The Planet of the Apes,’ but whether it’s this film or not, I don’t know.”

If Reeves manages to keep the quality of the series high, and there’s absolutely no reason to think that he won’t, why not give the material a little more room to breathe and let the franchise span four or maybe even five films?  As Serkis points out, the prequels end when they hit the events of Planet of the Apes and at that point, we’ve got a totally advanced society of apes.  Perhaps the filmmakers are better off taking their time getting there rather than doing a 10-year jump like they did with Dawn and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.