Warner Bros. dates its live-action version of ‘Jungle Book: Origins’ for October 21, 2016, a little over a year after Disney’s rival project opens.
Warner Bros. has dated its live-action version of Jungle Book: Origins for October 21, 2016, Variety reports, a little over a year after Disney’s rival project opens.
The project will be directed by Andy Serkis, been a pioneer in performance capture roles as Gollum in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, as King Kong in Jackson’s King Kong and as Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
Serkis will also produce the film alongside Harry Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves and Jonathan Cavendish, Serkis’ partner at their London-based production company The Imaginarium. Callie Kloves wrote the adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling stories about a young boy raised by wolves.
Disney’s own Jungle Book opens October 9, 2015, with Jon Favreau directing and Idris Elba voicing the tiger, Shere Khan. Kipling’s original stories were published in 1894 and are in the public domain.
Disney recently cast Bill Murray as Baloo in The Jungle Book.
Warner Bros. has not yet started casting for its Jungle Book: Origins. It is the first feature directing job for Serkis, although the actor was a second unit director on Peter Jackson’s two Hobbit movies, including the barrel chase scene in The Desolation of Smaug.
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
