‘Jungle Book Origins’ gets Alfonso Cuaron, delayed until 2018

Alfonso Cuarón was considered for the Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them director job, but now will wait longer for his first directorial project since Gravity.

According to The Hollywood Reporter’s sources, Cuarón will “consult” on the movie. As THR points out that this role can involve anything from directorial responsibilities to helping out with the editing process.

Warner Bros. has also pushed the project back a year to October 2018.

“I’ve got to say that personally I’m absolutely thrilled that Warner Brothers have changed the delivery date of Jungle Book: Origins, Serkis wrote on Facebook. “The ambition for this project is huge. What we are attempting is an unprecedented level of psychological and emotional nuance in morphing the phenomenal performances of our cast into the facial expressions of our animals. We are breaking new ground with realistic non-humanoid animal faces, such as a panther or wolf, ensuring that they convincingly communicate with human language and emotion via performance capture, and are able to stand up to real scrutiny in richly complex dramatic scenes.

“So, every minute more that we have to evolve the technological pipeline will make all the difference…the evidence is there already and it’s off the chain exciting, so hang on in there…This is truly next generation storytelling, and it will be the real deal!”

Serkis’s version has lined up a great cast including Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hollander, Matthew Rhys and Naomie Harris. Serkis, himself, is playing Baloo.

Jungle Book: Origins will be arriving on October 19, 2018.

Scanned image of the cover of the first edition of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (1865-18th January 1936), illustrated by John Lockwood Kipling (1837-1911)