Warner Bros.' Live Action TARZAN Film May Be In Trouble
Warner Bros. announced a live-action Tarzan movie a few years ago, with Alexander Skarsgard and Margot Robbie in the roles of the vine-swinging jungle dweller and his gal pal Jane. Director David Yates is at the helm, but if a new report from THR is to be believed, the film might be in a little bit of trouble because Yates is now occupied with a different project: the Harry Potter universe movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Yates has already begun production on Beasts, while there's reportedly a lot of post-production work left to do on Tarzan. Results of early test screenings have not been positive, and some sources close to the production are saying Yates is only looking over edits on the weekends while shooting Beasts during the week. Some are questioning why the same studio would take a director off of one project before it's finished to put him on another one, but a WB executive says they are "extremely comfortable with the production timelines" and "have total confidence in the skill of David Yates — who is a four-time Harry Potter director — to deliver both of these pictures."
The studio definitely doesn't care as much about Tarzan as Beasts, since the latter is a part of WB's all-time biggest franchises and is designed to start a new trilogy of movies that are expected to do big money at the box office. It'd be wrong to assume they're just writing off Tarzan completely, especially since Pan flopped so hard recently and they're probably not thrilled with the idea of another bomb on their hands, but it's clear that the priority lies with Beasts and Tarzan is something of an after thought.
Let's all take this information with a grain of salt. Just because a movie experiences some difficulties during production (or post-production) doesn't automatically mean it's going to be bad. And who knows? Maybe this info was leaked by someone with a grudge against WB or the film just to drum up some negative publicity. Months from now, we could look back on this as a weird blip in the radar that had no discernible bearing on the final product, or we could look back on it as the first major sign of bad things to come. We'll have to see if Tarzan can hit its July 1st, 2016 release date or if the studio ends up bumping it back so Yates has time to finish it properly.