Andy Serkis' comedy laced drama adaptation of Animal Farm is stacking up to have a solid voice cast headed by Seth Rogen, who is fresh off the slow-burn success of Mufasa: The Lion King, Stranger Things' Gaten Matarazzo, Transformers One's Steve Buscemi, and Fatal Attractions' Glenn Close.
Others expected to appear in the film are Laverne Cox, Kieran Culkin, Woody Harrelson, Jim Parsons, Kathleen Turner, Iman Vellani, and Serkis himself. The flick is still linked to both Rupert Wyatt and Serkis, obviously. So yeah, pretty star-studded. Meanwhile, The Muppets writer Nick Stoller taking the responsibility of the screenplay. Adam Nagle, Dave Rosenbaum, Jonathan Cavendish, and Serkis all produce while Harrelson and Matt Reeves takes up executive producing.
The film tapped Cinesite, which has done tons of work ranging from Avengers: Endgame to Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, for the animation.
Casting your mind back to 2011, Wyatt and Serkis were hard at work on adapting the George Orwell novella, Animal Farm, into a feature length flick. The duo already had chemistry after working on Rise of the Planet of the Apes together. Things went quiet, though, as delays piled up and things looked grim for the adaptation. Luckily, things turned out alright and the film looks to be on-track to potentially release sooner rather than later.
Animal Farm retells the story of farm animals that rebel against the human farmers, only to end up under the perverbial thumb of Napoleon, a cunning pig who ends up no better than the humans.
Granted, this isn't the first time we've seen Animal Farm adapted for the big screen. In 1954, John Halas and Joy Batchelor made Animal Farm, partly funded by the CIA, which ended up providing animtors to see the film through. Considering the cast, though, it's unlikely Serkis' adaptation of the novel will be as drama-heavy as the book or film adaptation. Odds are, it'll have a lot of humor thrown in and we're sure many are gonna feel thrown out of it due to Rogen's involvement in the cast.
Fans probably don't have too long to wait considering the film has supposedly wrapped up production back in May 2024, but it's also possible that more work needs to be done before the film will release. Regardless of the type of film it is, we're sure Serkis' adaptation will bring something vastly different to the table for better or worse.