He ran moonshine in Lawless and was relentless in trying to track down terrorists in Zero Dark Thirty, but now Jason Clarke faces what could be his toughest task yet. He’s just signed on to star in Rise sequel Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes.

Cloverfield's Matt Reeves is directing the film, which is keeping most of its plot details hidden behind a wall of gorillas. But some information is beginning to leak out about current writer Mark Bomback’s script, which will apparently be set 15 years after the events of Rise and will pick up several story strands.

Chief among them is that a group of human scientists is struggling to survive alone in San Francisco (with swathes of the population downed by either smartened simians or the virus that began to spread at the end of the first movie) and chief chimp Caesar (Andy Serkis) is struggling to keep control as king of the swingers.

There’s no indication yet of which role Clarke is playing, but we can see him as a science type or, if we're type-casting, someone working to protect them.

Reeves should be cranking the cameras this spring, aiming for a May 23, 2014 release. Clarke will next show up in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby (due May 17), Roland Emmerich thriller White House Down (September 6) and young Abraham Lincoln tale The Green Blade Rises, which finished shooting last year.