Andy Serkis’s upcoming film Mowgli will get a limited release on November 29 ahead of its global launch on Netflix on December 7, the streaming platform said in a press release. The film will be released in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and London.
The streaming platform bought the rights to the film from Warner Bros in July. An adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, the film stars Rohan Chand as Mowgli, the feral child raised by wolves in a jungle in central India. The cast includes Serkis as Baloo the bear, Benedict Cumberbatch as the tiger Shere Khan, Cate Blanchett as the python Kaa and Christian Bale as the leopard Bagheera.
A new trailer, which showcases Mowgli’s friendships in the jungle, was released by Netflix on Thursday. The film is said to have a darker spin on Kipling’s stories. Serkis added that Mowgli would be an “emotional version” of the literary classic. “I wanted to explore being an outsider. Being dislodged, being other,” Serkis told Variety.
Previous adaptations include Disney’s 1967 animation and Jon Favreau’s live action film The Jungle Book (2016).
Among the other Netflix films that are being given a limited theatrical release before being streamed are Oscar contenders Roma, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Bird Box.