Move Over, Madagascar; Andy Serkis to Adapt Orwell's Animal Farm As Family-Friendly Barnyard Romp
Does your child love dystopian political allegorical novellas but, more than that, love talking animals doing people things? Then he or she is going to love Andy Serkis' upcoming family-friendly adaptation of George Orwell's iconic anti-Stallinist kids' story Animal Farm.
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Serkis' performance-capture studio The Imaginarium has recently acquired the rights to the 1945 book, and plans to adapt it as a motion picture. Serkis confirmed in an interview that the production will involve, not only the motion-capture filming techniques that brought him fame (most famously as the computer-generated Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy), but also puppetry and possibly even traditional animation.
More importantly, Serkis plans to toss aside a lot of the political mumbo jumbo that bogged down the original text to get to the true heart of Orwell's story: the tale of BFFships between cuddly farm animals:
"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."
Serkis also promises that the film will contain "a great deal of humor and satire" and "real emotional heart," though probably nothing approaching the moment in Finding Nemo when Nemo's mom dies.
With production still in its early planning stages, no release date for Farmville 1: Wild Hogz has yet been set.
[Hollywood Reporter // NYT // Images via Getty and Karen Horton/flickr]