Though we just had an adaptation of The Jungle Book hit theaters a couple years ago, Andy Serkis was not about to let some CGI primates escape his mo-capped grasp. Now he’s got his own update of the tale hitting theaters—and he’s managed to draw in just as star-studded a cast as Disney’s take, too. Serkis’s sophomore directing effort, Mowgli sees Benedict Cumberbatch as Shere Khan, Cate Blanchett as Kaa, Christian Bale as Bagheera, Naomi Harris as Nisha, and the director himself as Baloo. Warner Bros. is marketing this as the darker take, but as you can see from this trailer, it also seems to be the take where the animals all looks a liiiiiiittle off-putting. Perhaps tired of seeing his own mo-capped performance lost in the less expressive face of whatever creature he’s pretending to be, Serkis appears to have given the film’s wildlife slightly more human-like faces. At last, Kipling’s immortal classic meets the haunting chimeras of God-verboten modern science!
Mowgli hits theaters October 19.
