Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes director Matt Reeves has already picked one person he’s worked with before, in the shape of Let Me In’s Kodi Smit-McPhee. Now he’s reaching even further back into his career to sign up Keri Russell, who starred in '90s TV drama Felicity for Reeves and a certain JJ Abrams.

Russell is the latest hire for the Apes sequel, which picks up 15 years after the events of Rise and finds humanity struggling to survive the simian onslaught. Add to that the problems caused by a rampant virus and you’ve got the makings of dark days for homo sapiens.

Yet there is a group of humans leading the fight to find a solution, with a group of scientists working in San Francisco. So far, little else has been revealed about the plot, or what exactly Russell, Smit-McPhee, Jason Clarke and Gary Oldman will be doing in it. There’s also the ape side of things, with chimp revolutionary Caesar (Andy Serkis) battling to maintain control of his unruly monkey mob.

Working from a script by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver and Mark Bomback, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes is set for May 23, 2014 and is close to kicking off shooting in New Orleans.

As for Russell, she’ll next tackle aliens in Dark Skies and has been receiving acclaim for her work on US TV drama The Americans. She also has Austenland due out sometime later this year.