Andy Serkis is finally getting his shot in the director's chair, by gollum.
The affable Brit has signed on to helm a live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book for Warner Bros., a person with knowledge of the deal confirms to Mashable.
Serkis has lent his formidable voice and motion-capture talents to a number of major special-effects films, most memorably as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies. He became such an integral part of those productions that Jackson named Serkis his second-unit director, on-the-job training that would prove to be — yeah, we're going there — preciousssss.
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Jungle Book has been in development at Warner Bros. for some time, but the studio struggled to settle on its director. Babel director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu was the first to board the project, but fell out due to scheduling; Rush director Ron Howard flirted with the film, but that never looked like it was going to materialize.
Turning to Serkis is a big vote of confidence for the newbie. On the other hand, it's not that much of a stretch. Serkis, the undisputed maestro of mo-cap acting, is unquestionably bright, endlessly energetic and beloved by colleagues.
And with extensive action-sequence directing on the Rings and Hobbit films, plus major work on Planet of the Apes, Steven Spielberg's Tintin and Jackson's King Kong, he's spent more time on big-budget film sets than most working directors.
He'll have to move nimbly, though: Warners is in a race with Disney, which made the 1967 animated classic and is determined to make its own live-action version, led by Iron Man and Elf director Jon Favreau.
Knowing Serkis, his adaptation — first reported by The Hollywood Reporter — is likely to be much darker than Disney's, and reportedly will hew much closer to Rudyard Kipling's original stories.
You know, just the bare necessities.