Andy Serkis Set to Direct ANIMAL FARM

Movie by Joey Paur

Performance capture actor Andy Serkis has made quite a name for himself over the years, starring in films such as Lord of the Rings, King Kong, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and most recently The Hobbit -- in which he also served as 2nd unit director. He's now set to direct a big screen adaptation of the classic George Orwell novel Animal Farm. I love this book, and I always thought it would make for an incredible movie. 

It will be produced by The Imaginarium, a London-based performance capture studio that Serkis and producer Jonathan Cavendish (Bridget Jones’s Diary, Elizabeth: The Golden Age) formed back in 2011. Here's what Serkis had to say about the project in a recent interview with THR,

I think we found a rather fresh way of looking at it. It is definitely using performance capture but we are using an amalgamation of filming styles to create the environmments.

We are in proof of concept stage at the moment, designing characters and experimenting on our stage with the designs. It is quite a wide canvas at the moment as to how much and how far we can take performance capture with quadrupeds and how much we will be using facial [capture]. We are not discounting the use of keyframe animation or puppeteering parts of animals. We are in an experimental phase; it’s terribly exciting.

Serkis went on to talk about the story saying,

We’re keeping it fable-istic and [aimed at] a family audience. We are not going to handle the politics in a heavy-handed fashion. It is going to be emotionally centered in a way that I don’t think has been seen before. The point of view that we take will be slightly different to how it is normally portrayed and the characters—we are examining this in a new light.

I loved the politics in the book, it's what kept the story so intriguing. I never thought of this story as a family film, so it will be interesting to see what they do with it. Hopefully they don't water it down to the point of idiocracy. It's a smart book, and I don't see the point of dumbing it down. 

There's a chance that Serkis will act in the film as well, but that has yet to be seen. For those of you not familiar with the book here's a little explanation,

Animal Farm tells the story of a group of farm animals who successfully revolt against their cruel human owner, only to be enslaved anew by the unscrupulous pig Napoleon, whose slogan is "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

According to Orwell, the book reflects events leading up to and during the Stalin era before the Second World War. "The novel addresses not only the corruption of the revolution by its leaders but also how wickedness, indifference, ignorance, greed and myopia corrupt the revolution. It portrays corrupt leadership as the flaw in revolution, rather than the act of revolution itself. It also shows how potential ignorance and indifference to problems within a revolution could allow horrors to happen if a smooth transition to a people's government is not achieved."

Hopefully Serkis can capture all of this in his adaptation. There's actually an animated film, that was made that was actually pretty dark. You can watch it in its entirety below. Are you excited about Serkis bringing Animal Farm to life on the big screen?

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