Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt and star Andy Serkis have begun work on a big-screen adaptation of George Orwell’s seminal novel Animal Farm, Entertainment Weekly reports. Orwell’s allegorical dress-down of Stalinism, centering on a group of farm animals whose utopian society is undone by scheming and corruption, has thus far yielded two feature-length films, the most recent of which was a 1999 made-for-TV effort featuring the voices of Kelsey Grammar and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss.
Serkis and Wyatt say that their take on Orwell’s story will involve utilizing the same motion-capture technology that was used in Apes to create the character of Caesar, a super-intelligent monkey who revolts against his human handlers. Serkis, who provided the mo-cap work for Caesar, says that he intends to play a character in the planned adaptation, but is mum as to which one. The question is, does it really matter? It's freaking mo-cap. He could play all the characters if he wants; in the end they'll all be digitally painted-over, and thus made indistinguishable from well-rendered all-CGI characters.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes opens August 5, 2011.
Source: Entertainment Weekly