FoxNext and Chris Milk’s Within partner for ‘Planet of the Apes’ AR/VR experience

Slowly but surely, huge entertainment companies are throwing major resources into virtual reality plays.

Fox took part in Within‘s $12.5 million Series A in June, and now the group’s newly formed “immersive, next generation entertainment” arm, FoxNext, will be partnering with the VR studio headed by the innovative filmmaker Chris Milk to begin crafting custom experiences in virtual and augmented reality.

The first experience will be one based on Twentieth Century Fox’s Planet of the Apes franchise. The newest feature length film in the series, War for the Planet of the Apes, will be arriving in theaters this June. There not much in the way of details for the immersive project but the press release does offer some fairly vague hints of new tech being used.

“The project will utilize artificial intelligence to deliver a shared social experience that will be available on the Within app and across virtual and augmented reality platforms.” While it is not remotely clear what that actually means, it will be cool to see how Within approaches more interactive content even if it is for a sponsored Planet of the Apes experience.

In addition to the Apes project, Within and FoxNext are also partnering the studio Annapurna Pictures to create an original VR film, tentatively titled “I Remember You.” The film was developed alongside Spike Jonze, and will be produced and directed by Milk.

“VR provides a unique opportunity to expose and explore the boundaries of technology and personal expression,” said Milk in a statement, “We’re confident that the opportunities of bringing narrative, plot-driven VR experiences to the mainstream outweigh the challenges. These two projects couldn’t be any more different in how we’re building them, or the end result.  That’s what’s exciting about this new medium though, there is no one right answer.”