When dueling Jungle Book projects were set up at
Warner Bros. and Disney, it appeared that the
race was on to see which adaptation would come
to fruition first. WB had a harder time locking
down a director ( Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu
and Ron Howard both flirted with the idea before
moving on), while Disney’s almost entirely CG-
animated film came together quickly with director
Jon Favreau . Eventually, Andy Serkis came
aboard to make his feature directorial debut with
Warner Bros.’ Jungle Book: Origins with the idea
of shooting the film entirely with motion-capture,
and while he assembled a swell cast that
includes Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett , it
appears that the movie will be hitting theaters a
year later than expected as WB has pushed the
Jungle Book: Origins release date back to 2017.
Warner Bros. has opted to move the Jungle Book:
Origins release date from October 21, 2016 to
October 6, 2017, making it the first film to be
slated for the month of October in 2017. That
puts Origins on track to open a full two years
after Disney’s iteration, though I imagine the films
will be quite different.
Serkis has been at the forefront of motion-
capture technology since his work as Gollum in
The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and he recently told
us that the way they’re creating the animals in
Origins hasn’t been done before. The release date
delay is probably a combination of the post-
production time needed to complete the effects
and Serkis’ busy schedule, since he’s due to start
shooting the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
follow-up sometime next year.
The actor/director also told us that he’s already
been working with his principal cast on the film,
so production is indeed underway. Benedict
Cumberbatch is playing Shere Khan, and in
addition to Bale and Blanchett, the performance
capture ensemble also includes Naomie Harris
and Tom Hollander , with Bad Words star Rohan
Chand filling the live-action role of Mowgli.
In other Warner Bros. release date news, the sci-
fi adventure Geostorm has been slated for release
on October 21, 2016, taking over Jungle Book ’s
previous date. The film stars Jim Sturgess ,
Abbie Cornish , and Ed Harris .
No comments:
Post a Comment