It seems as if James Franco will not be reprising his role in any capacity for Fox's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. It's hard to find this upsetting since I feel there were only really two important characters in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and his was not one of them. In an interview with MTV Franco elaborated on the situation: 

I was going to be a small part of the next one. There was a moment when Rupert Wyatt was going to direct the second one. A lot of the human characters that were in the first movie were dead in the sequel that Rupert was going to direct. But there was one scene, between Caesar and my character, maybe even just like on a video that was left behind, but then a lot of things happened, like [former Fox co-chairman] Tom Rothman who was a big part of the first movie, left. Now Rupert's not a part of it so I don't know. My guess is I won't be in it. Nobody's talked to me since Rupert left.

I guess the studio execs felt the same way as I did. To be fair, I feel a little bad for Franco, as I would think that someone somewhere would at least have the decency to let him know that he won't be needed for the sequel. At least he's still going on to do big things, and he'll still be working with simians, just of the flying variety. 

[MTV via JoBlo]