Andy Serkis' Mowgli has journeyed down a weird road to finally get in front of audiences' eyeballs. Mired by multiple production delays, the gritty, live-action take on Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book was sold by WB to Netflix earlier this year, gifting the streaming platform a star-studded vehicle to release during the Holiday season. I mean: the actors lending their voices to these talking animals are pretty incredible - Serkis is Baloo the bear, Christian Bale is Bagheera the brotherly panther, Cate Blanchett is the slithering snake Kaa, and Benedict Cumberbatch lends his baritone to big bad tiger Shere Khan.
Sure, I'll watch that. Then again, I'm a sucker for animals talking in any movie (yes, I am one of those people who invents individual voices for his pets so we can hold conversations, don't judge me). Yesterday, Netflix announced the film will be released in limited theaters on Nov. 29 before hitting the streaming platform on Dec. 7. "Limited" is the key word here, as it's only a few select houses in a few markets (namely NY, LA, etc.). Don't think Netflix is getting away from their business model too much.
Along with that info, Netflix also dropped a new spot for the movie, which is selling quite the weird experience, sort of like a cross between the modern Planet of the Apes pictures and the live-action Disney stuff we've been treated to lately.
Take a look:
It'll be interesting to see how this plays, as not all the CGI on display looks that great. However, Serkis is obviously the king of this type of filmmaking, having pretty much perfected mo-cap performances, so I'm willing to give his Mowgli the benefit of the doubt.
Guess we'll find out on November 29th and December 7th. My cat is gonna be so into this one.