Andy Serkis roped in to helm Warner Bros.’ Jungle Book

The man who is famous for his enactment of Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies, Andy Serkis, has been signed up by Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. to direct their live action version of The Jungle Book. It’s not clear though if Andy will also act in the film or not.

Serkis has been hired as a replacement of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu who left the project due to date conflicts. Initially Ron Howard was eyed as the frontrunner in the race but negotiations with the famous producer didn’t continue far long. On the other hand Disney is also planning a live-action movie on The Jungle Book and they are also in the casting stage for the film.
To appoint Serkis as the film’s director is not a very usual arrangement on the producers’ part. Jungle Book will mark the directorial debut for Serkis who earlier directed the second unit on Peter Jackson's The Hobbit movies. Jungle Book is an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s short stories which center on Mowgli, Baloo the bear, Bagheera the black panther and Shera Khan the ferocious tiger. The script for the film has been penned by Callie Kloves. The Warners movie hopes to go beyond the apparent material of the stories as it will talk about life-and-death issues as well as realistic animal behaviour.