Andy Serkis Will Helm the Warner Bros.’ Project “The Jungle Book”

This may come as quite a surprise to many people that Andy Serkis, who is best known for his outstanding performance as “Gollum” in ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’ franchise, has been announced to make a debutante effort as a director of live-action adaptation of Disney’s classic animated film “The Jungle Book”. He took over the job from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who was initially announced to direct the film, but turned it down owing to some scheduling conflicts. Many rumors are circulating that he may also act in the film, but it has not been confirmed so far.

The “Rush” director Ron Howard was also in talks with Warner Bros.’ studio to direct the film, but they couldn't come to the terms so he turned down as well. Warner Bros.’ has to match wits with another live action adaptation film with the same title that is already going through the casting process. In this another Disney’s project, Idris Elba has been casted as a voice actor for the deadly tiger Shera Khan and the film will be directed by Jon Favreau, who is best known for Elf and Iron Man.

Providing Serkis a great responsibility of helming the project is out-of-the-box approach by the studio, yet not implausible. Although it’s a directorial debut of Serkis, but he has a convincing talent, as he worked as a 2nd unit director in The Hobbit films, the 3rd of which is projected to launch in December. Some of the scenes required the making of detailed and lively action series. For instance, Serkis directed the broadly admired barrel-chase progression in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Peter Jackson conferred a trust upon Serkis with this responsibility after Serkis grew a grasp of CG technology in the course of his acting skills not only in LOTR, but also in King Kong, The Adventures of Tintin and the Planet of the Apes franchise. Serkis is now the key man to helm the project. His live-action character is expected to come with much CG and motion capture.

We all know Jungle Book story that is written by Rudyard Kipling and revolves around a jungle boy Mowgli, who is raised by the animals including a Bear named Baloo, and Black Panther named Bagheera. His life is endangered by a brutal tiger Shere Khan, who has extreme desire to eat him. Callie Kloves has been announced to pen the script.