'Dark and savage' trailer for Andy Serkis's Mowgli lands

The first trailer for Andy Serkis’s brooding take on Rudyard Kipling has landed.

Following Disney and Jon Favreau’s box office smashing live-action take on The Jungle Book from 2016, it appears that with Mowgli the Lord of the Rings star has taken the famous story to a much darker place.

Using a wealth of motion capture technology, an all-star cast relays the story of an outcast boy raised by wolves in the jungle.

Mowgli is played by young actor Rohan Chand, with Christian Bale as Bagheera the panther, Cate Blanchett as the snake Kaa, Benedict Cumberbatch as the fearsome Bengal tiger Shere Khan, Naomie Harris as the wolf Nisha and Serkis himself as Baloo the bear.

There are also roles for Frieda Pinto, Peter Mullan, Matthew Rhys, Eddie Marsan and Tom Hollander.

The reception online appears to be largely positive, though some movie fans are questioning why another re-telling of the Kipling tale is necessary following Disney’s in 2016.

In fact, this iteration of the book was in development some time before Disney’s, initially with Harry Potter screenplay adaptor Steve Kloves in line to direct, then Alejandro González Iñárritu, and then Ron Howard.

Serkis then signed up in early 2014, with the other members of stellar cast soon after.

It was originally set for a 2016 release, the same year as Disney’s version, but was shifted to 2017 to allow more work on special effects, and then finally slated for October, 2018.

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