Andy Serkis is currently in New Zealand taking on orcs, wizards, elves and boney-fingered ring fanciers in one of the highest profile films now in production: “The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum.”
Serkis’ grand return to the franchise — due for release by Warner Bros. at the end of 2027, just shy of 25 years since Peter Jackson concluded his all-conquering LOTR trilogy with “Return of the King” (and Gollum’s demise in Mount Doom) — sees the multi-hyphenate in the director’s seat for the first time in Middle-earth (he served as second unit director on all three “The Hobbit” features). At the same time, of course, he’s still covering himself in little dots to play Smeagol.
But while Serkis juggles stepping into Jackson’s illustrious shoes and his motion-capture duties alongside returning faces (Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood) and new (Kate Winslet, Jamie Dornan, Anya Taylor-Joy, Leo Woodall), his previous movie as director is landing on home soil.
“Animal Farm,” the long-in-the-making animated adaptation of George Orwell’s classic novella and with a starry voice cast including Seth Rogen, Glenn Close, Kieran Culkin and Woody Harrelson, hits cinemas in the U.K. on July 17 (with Vue’s Lumiere distributing), some two-and-a-half months after it released in the U.S. A more family-friendly take on the allegorical tale warning about the corruptive nature of absolute power, even Serkis admits it didn’t have the U.S. launch he was hoping for, sparking “outrage” over what people perceived to be its political leanings (“anti-capitalist” and “not anti-communist enough” were some of the critiques, he says) and struggling at the box office.
