Jungle Book: Origins Targeting Slightly Older Audience

 

Andy Serkis’ postponed Jungle Book: Origins will offer up a darker, scarier version of Rudyard Kipling’s classic adventure tale. That’s according to the writer-director-actor himself, who revealed the tonal differences with Disney and Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book in an interview with Vulture. There, Serkis likened Origins‘ target audience to that of Fox’s lucrative Apes franchise, bringing it closer to the tone found in Kipling’s original story.

He said “Ours is for a slightly older audience, It’s a PG-13, more a kind of ‘Apes’ movie, a slightly darker take, closer to Rudyard Kipling’s. It’s great to scare kids in a safe environment because it’s an important part of development, and we all loved to be scared as kids, so we shouldn’t overly protect them. Kids are so sophisticated, and that is why our ‘Jungle Book’ is quite dark. … It’s a story of an outsider, someone who is trying to accept the laws and customs of a particular way of living and then has to adapt to another culture, a human culture, which of course he should be able to adapt to, because this is what he is. So it’s about two different species and their laws and customs, and neither are entirely right.”

On board to play the part of Baloo, Serkis’ directorial debut is also set to star Freida Pinto, Matthew Rhys and Rohan Chand in live-action roles with Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jack Reynor and Tom Hollander in the voice booth. 

Once on course to arrive next year, Jungle Book: Origins will grace theaters on October 19, 2018.