According to The Hollywood Reporter, Andy Serkis is set to take the director’s chair for a new live action version of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle book that Warner Bros. is underwriting.
Serkis will step into a role initially filled by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (“Babel”), who departed the project because of scheduling conflicts.
It’s not Serkis’s first directing gig — he has previously directed the stage play The Double Bass, a short film called Snake, and the video games Heavenly Sword and Enslaved. And, of course, he acted as second unit director for Peter Jackson’s film adaption of The Hobbit.
The Hollywood Reporter writes:
Putting Serkis in the director’s chair is outside-the-box thinking, yet not far-fetched. Jungle Book would be Serkis’ feature directorial debut after directing second unit on Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit movies, the third of which Warners is due to open in December. Some of the shoots involved the creation of elaborate and lively action sequences. For example, Serkis helmed the widely praised barrel-chase sequence in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
Serkis is also directing a highly anticipated adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm for The Imaginarium which is currently in pre-production.
