Andy Serkis' upcoming Jungle Book: Origins film retitled to Mowgli

Actor-filmmaker Andy Serkis' upcoming film Jungle Book: Origins has been retitled as Mowgli. Production house Warner Bros announced the new name of the film, reports variety.com.

Andy Serkis. Image from Twitter/@rtiindiapy

Serkis is directing and co-producing the movie, which will release on 21 October next year — more than two years after Disney released Jon Favreau's The Jungle Book. The film will revolve around the titular character, which is from Rudyard Kipling’s collection of stories. Mowgli is an orphaned boy raised solely by wolves in the jungle and grows up with his faithful companions Bagheera and Baloo. Serkis' adaptation will reportedly have a darker tone.

The film will feature voice overs of Christian Bale as Bagheera, Cate Blanchett as Kaa, Benedict Cumberbatch as Shere Khan, Naomie Harris as Nisha, Andy Serkis as Baloo, Peter Mullan as Akela, Jack Reynor as Mowgli's brother wolf, Eddie Marsan as Vihaan, Tom Hollander as Tabaqui, Freida Pinto as Messua and Matthew Rhys as Lockwood. The film will be an amalgamation of live action and motion-capture performances.

Gravity director Alfonso Cuaron is also supervising the project and will come in to see if there is any room for improvement in the scenes before the film opens. The film was earlier slated to release in 2016, but the date was pushed by Warner Bros.

With inputs from IANS.