Gollum. Caesar. Snoke. Andy Serkis knows a thing or two about performance capture, and he’s putting it to good use in his second film as director, Mowgli — a new, darker and more faithful take on The Jungle Book. Stripping back the story to the bare necessities of Rudyard Kipling’s book — from which both Disney versions veer considerably — Mowgli is looking like a fascinatingly different take on the mythology, which you can see for yourself in the very first trailer.
There’s plenty to dig into here, from seeing Mowgli (Rohan Chand) venturing into the human world, to the jungle’s many inhabitants — Christian Bale as Bagheera, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Shere Khan sporting a limp (as he does in the novel), and a rougher, tougher Baloo. Oh, and there’s no King Louis (he’s not part of Kipling’s book) and nobody’s breaking out into song — something that even Jon Favreau’s version couldn’t resist at points.
While the film was shot prior to Serkis’ feature debut Breathe, the lengthy post-production process will make it his second film — and you can see more about Serkis' plans for the film, its tone and content and the cast's journey from dots-on-suits to talking (but not singing) animals, in a featurette released alongside the trailer.
The film’s jaw-dropping effects come from The Imaginarium, Serkis’ own production company and digital performance-capture studio, who previously worked on the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The film hits UK cinemas on 19 October this year.
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