Warner Bros. Finally Ready to Roll-Out Andy Serkis's Dark Retelling of 'The Jungle Book', 'MOWGLI'!

Warner Bros. has just dropped the trailer for Mowgli, the newest live-action adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, and let me tell you, it is no day at the zoo. Director Andy Serkis has been long been anticipating his film finally seeing the light of day, as it actually finished filming three years ago but has been awaiting release and is set to explore a much darker and twisted side of the classic story. The movie will follow the dangers of Mowgli’s adventures, raised in the jungle halfway between animal and man.

Tasked with differentiating itself from both its Disney predecessors (the 1967 animated musical and Jon Favreau's 2016 "live-action" CGI-heavy reboot), Mowgli’s trailer is noticeably lacking the singing animals and dancing bears that we have come to associate with this story. Instead, this film promises to be “The Darkest Telling” of the famous tale yet, and the trailer throws us right into the middle of it. We first find Mowgli held captive, caged and stolen from his jungle home, then move backward to catch glimpses of his childhood, raised in the midst of the world’s most ferocious beasts.

Mowgli boasts an all-star cast, with Bagheera the wolf voiced by Christian Bale, Kaa the snake by Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cumberbatch as the terrifying tiger Shere Khan, and, of course, Andy Serkis (who is known for bringing iconic motion-capture character to life like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, Caesar in the Planet of the Apes franchise, and Supreme Leader Snoke in Star Wars: The Last Jedi) heads up the role of Baloo the bear.  

This film reunites The Hobbit actors Cumberbatch, Blanchett, and Serkis; check out our chat with all three at Comic-Con below!

One of the starkest differences in Serkis’s retelling is the character of Baloo himself. No longer the jovial singing bear, he is now a drill sergeant of sorts, determined to prepare Mowgli for the hardships of a life deep in the Indian jungle. Another addition is the theme of Mowgli’s assimilation into the human world, a move that is sure to come with its own threats and complications (I’m fairly confident it wasn’t the animals that put him in that cage).

All in all, this trailer has certainly caught our attention, and we’ll be listening to "The Bare Necessities" on repeat until Mowgli is released in theaters October 19. It is sure to be one heck of an adventure!

(Image via Warner Bros.)

- Kyla Killackey, YH Contributing Writer