In the biggest acquisition of a finished film it has made so far, Netflix has acquired from Warner Bros the worldwide rights (yes, even in the United States), to Mowgli, the CGI live action film directed by Andy Serkis based on the Jungle Book stories of Rudyard Kipling.
The film has a voice cast that includes Christian Bale as the cunning panther Bagheera, Cate Blanchett as the sinister snake Kaa, Benedict Cumberbatch as the deadly tiger Shere Khan, Moonlight‘s Naomie Harris as the female wolf Nisha, and Serkis as the wise bear Baloo. Surrounding them in live action roles are The Americans‘ Matthew Rhys, Freida Pinto and Rohan Chand, who after appearing in the films The Hundred-Foot Journey and Bad Words, plays Mowgli, the boy raised by wolves.
The stars of the film and its director all made appearances at 2018 CinemaCon in Las Vegas in April at the Warner Bros. presentation.
The studio has released a poster, a trailer and clips from the film. The Warner Bros movie poster even goes so far as to say “Only In Theaters.”
In buying worldwide rights from Warner Bros, Netflix gets a first-rate studio-caliber film made by Serkis, who has turned in groundbreaking performance capture and CGI work in films like The Lord of The Rings as Gollum, King Kong, and The Planet Of The Apes films. Serkis and Warner Bros get out from under the inevitable stigma that would have haunted a full scale theatrical release of a film that would inevitably be compared to Disney’s The Jungle Book, which grossed $966 million worldwide. At one point, there was a race between that film and Mowgli — both based on Kipling’s public domain work — but it is never good to be runner up, especially when the other one became such a big hit.
Warner Bros had Mowgli dated for an October 19 release. It will be recalibrated as an event offering next year by Netflix.
Serkis made Mowgli with 3D effects he hopes can be displayed in a theatrical component that will be part of Netflix’s release plans. But here, he will get an enormous global audience and see through his vision for a story that is darker and more dangerous than the one Jon Favreau directed for Disney.
The movie was shot in South Africa and made to reflect the jungles of India and its civilization during the 19th Century.
“I’m really excited about Netflix for Mowgli,” Serkis told Deadline. “Now, we avoid comparisons to the other movie and it’s a relief not to have the pressure. I’ve seen the 3D version, and it’s exceptional, a different view from the 2D version, really lush and with great depth, and there will be some kind of theatrical component for that. What excites me most is the forward thinking at Netflix in how to present this, and the message of the movie. They understand this is a darker telling that doesn’t fit it into a four quadrant slot. It’s really not meant for young kids, though I think it’s possible that 10 or above can watch it. It was always meant to be PG-13, and this allows us to go deeper, with darker themes, to be scary and frightening in moments. The violence between animals is not gratuitous, but it’s definitely there. This way of going allows us to get the film out without compromise.”
This takes to a new level the deals that Netflix has been making with movie companies looking to lay off risk on their projects. That included buying rights to Paramount’s Cloverfield sequel God Particle, advertising it as a surprise on the Super Bowl and launching it right after the game, to acquiring the foreign rights to New Line’s new Shaft movie from Warner Bros and New Line, which will play on Netflix’s offshore service two weeks after the domestic theatrical release, and offshore rights on the Alex Garland-directed Natalie Portman-starrer Annihilation from Paramount, which began running 17 days after its domestic theatrical launch. It is eyed as a new model for films that have a hard time gaining traction overseas, but the Mowgli deal is much different in scope and scale.
Watch the Mowgli trailer below.
