Well, we didn’t see this coming. Despite Ron Howard being courted last month—against our wishes—to helm a live-action take on “The Jungle Book” for Warner Bros. after Alejandro González Iñárritu walked away from the project, the “Rush” director will not be behind the camera on the presumed-franchise-starter. Instead it’s someone very familiar to the studio and another actor-turned-filmmaker.
THR reports that Andy Serkis, one of the pioneers of motion-capture performance, will take the reins on the project which would be his feature-length directorial debut. For those of you doubting Serkis’ ability behind the camera, it should be known that Serkis was hired-on by Peter Jackson as the second-unit director for ‘The Hobbit‘ trilogy and, according to the trade, he was behind the much bally-hooed barrel-chase in the “The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug.”
So yeah, dude knows his way around a blockbuster set-piece and that’s not even counting his experience as a motion-capture performer which will come in handy for Warner Bros’ “The Jungle Book,” said to include “plenty of CG and motion capture” because of course it will. This take, as opposed to Disney’s Jon Favreau-helmed live-action vesion that will retain “the family brand with certain mythic elements,” will hew more closely the Rudyard Kipling’s darker original stories, in the script by Callie Kloves. What do you folks think, is this a great wild choice or should the studio have gone for someone more experienced?
