Zaius - Will Rodman

Will Rodman

Dr. Will Rodman is a fictional character in the 2011 series reboot Rise of the Planet of the Apes. He was portrayed by actor James Franco.

Dr. Will Rodman is a young scientist working at Gen-Sys Industries, a pharmaceutical company in San Francisco. He has been working over five years on a cure for Alzheimer's disease, which his father Charles Rodman (played by John Lithgow), a former music teacher, is suffering from. An ape from Africa is captured and taken to the company, and is given the drug codenamed ALZ-112; which experiments has shown lets the brain "heals" itself by recreating its cells, with the only known side-effect being a change in the eyes' pupils to green. He and Steven Jacobs (played by David Oyelowo), the executive overseeing the progress, decides to present it to the Board to move the testing to the next phase of clinical trials on humans. The captured ape that was given the drug, Chimp 9 aka "Bright Eyes" is seen attacking the handlers and goes on a rampage which ends with her getting shot. Too late, Franklin the ape handler, and Will realized that it wasn't the drug that made her attack, but her newborn baby chimp whom her maternal primal instincts felt she needed to protect against the humans. The project is scrapped and all the other apes tested with the drug are ordered to be put down. However, Franklin cannot bring himself to kill the baby chimp and pleas with Will to take the baby chimp home instead.

Will adopts the baby chimp and names him "Caesar". 3 years later, Will is witnessing the severe side effects of his father's disease, while Caesar grows more intelligent - this convinces him to steal some of the drugs from the lab and use it on his father. His father is shown to have made an instant recovery; moving five more years forward Charles has been receiving routine doses via injection of ALZ-112. In the five years past, Caesar is also displaying great intellectual prowess and is now an adult chimp, who yearns to explore beyond his surrounding and starts questioning his identity after he sees a German Shepherd on a collared leash like the one he has on. He signs to Will if he's a pet, which Will adamantly states no. He then signs to Will what he is, and Will says, "I'm your father," which he follows with a sign, "What is Caesar?" Will decides to tell Caesar the truth and takes him to Gen-Sys and tells him that he works there, and that Caesar was born there, and his mother was given medicine along with other chimps. He explains to him that the medicine that was given to his mother passed through to him in-vitro, and that's why his intelligence is so high. He also tells Caesar that his mother is dead.

Will's father (whose body is fighting the artificial virus with antibodies being naturally created by the immune system), attempts to drive the neighbor's car in one of his states of dementia; the angered neighbor is being confrontational to Charles, and Caesar attacks the neighbor, biting off the finger that he was poking Charles repeatedly with. Caesar is taken to San Bruno primate facility by animal control, and is kept there, when a concerned Will says that "he hasn't spent any time with other chimps". Heartbroken, Caesar is treated violently by the staff and other ape inmates. Will has been working on a stronger viral strain since he realizes that the immune system will eventually built an immunity to ALZ-112 (just like when someone is injected with a vaccination). After meeting with Jacobs and revealing he's given his father the drug (there-by already having a human trial phase), Jacobs gives him the okay to test the new strain, named ALZ-113.

The new drug is given on an ape named Koba, who in a moment of fit during the administering knocks a gas mask off of Franklin. The ALZ-113, unlike the 112, is not injected but inhaled instead (which also means that the virus is airborne). The new drug seems to work on Koba, but Will is concerned about it when he also gives the new strain to his father, who dies the next morning after taking it. Trying to warn Jacobs about not moving forward without revealing about his father's death, Will quits after he realizes that he's unable to change the mind of the greedy Jacobs. Franklin is later approaching the Rodman house for help realizing that he's been infected by the virus, but sneezes blood on the neighbor.

Will tries to take Caesar home by bribing the owner of the primate facility, who takes the bribe, but is refused by Caesar himself to go, believing he belongs there moreso than with Will. Caesar realizes after befriending another ape, who also knows how to sign from being in the circus, that he needs to make the apes more intelligent if they are to break from their bondage. Caesar manages to escape and return to his former home, where he knows that Will use to keep stolen tubes of the original ALZ-112 in the refrigerator. However, he finds the new 113 instead, and upon accidentally pressing the cap, a little bit of the virus is released on to the window pane and absorbed, letting the intelligent Caesar realize that the virus can be absorbed as it's a gas. He releases the 113 down the corridor of where the apes are held in cages, and the virus fills the air with its gas. The next day, Caesar inspects every ape passing through to see if its eyes are green, thereby knowing if that ape has the virus or not. He leads a revolution against their captive and head towards Gen-Sys, and proceed to break out all the lab chimps and all the apes at the zoo. After fighting their way towards the Golden Gate and towards the Redwood Grove, Will calls for Caesar, but is attacked by Koba, but stopped by Caesar. Will tries to reason with him by trying to take him home. Caesar speaks to him, "Caesar is home", and they part as the apes are overlooking San Francisco. Caesar appears to take on more human characteristic, like walking upright, riding a horse, and now speaking. In a post credits scene, the neighbor now infected with the 113 is traveling to New York, spreading the virus.