It’s fair to say that things have been awfully quiet around Warner Bros. and Harry Potter director David Yates' new Tarzan film. Not so much as a yodeling jungle cry typical of its hero has been heard, but now we have our first look at what has been titled The Legend Of Tarzan via USA Today.
Alexander Skarsgard stars(gard) as the muscle-bound Edgar Rice Burroughs hero, with Margot Robbie as Jane, but all involved are promising that this is a very different approach to the character that has graced multiple films, TV series and books. In Yates’ movie, Lord Greystoke, AKA John Clayton III, hasn’t lived in the jungle for a decade and is well established as an English gentleman, married to Jane in Victorian London.
But then he’s called upon by the authorities to return and help with a nasty threat to the local wildlife and society from Belgian baddie Captain Leon Rom, (Christoph Waltz, who is almost certainly not Blofeld this time). “It’s almost the opposite of the classic tale, where it’s about taming the beast,” says Skarsgard. “This is about a man who’s holding back and slowly as you peel off the layers, he reverts back to a more animalistic state and lets that side of his personality out.”
He’ll get some help from Jane – who we’re as usual assured is not a passive heroine – Samuel L. Jackson as real-life historical figure George Washington Williams and Djimon Hounsou as Chief Mbonga. But the onus is on Skarsgard, who despite seemingly being in shape already, had to get seriously lean and ripped for the role. “I basically didn’t see my family or my friends,” he remarks of the training regime, though it “was definitely worth getting up at 4:30 in the morning.” And he was put through his paces by choreographer Wayne McGregor, who worked with him to come up with both his upper class posture and the wild side that comes out when he heads back to the Congo. “He works mostly with the best contemporary ballet dancers in the world, so it was quite unusual for him to work with somebody like me who can’t touch their toes,” says Skarsgard.
We’d be shocked – shocked! – if this didn’t mean the trailer was on its way, but as for the movie, that will be out in the UK on July 8.