Streaming giant Netflix has acquired the Animal Farm movie adaptation of George Orwell’s classic story.
According to Variety, Andy Serkis will be directing and producing through his Imaginarium production company along with Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves.
Animal Farm is the second motion-capture driven literary adaptation from Serkis that Netflix has officially acquired in less than a week, after the company's purchase of Mowgli last Friday.
In 2012, Serkis had announced he had plans to helm a performance-capture based retelling of the novel. His studio had acquired the film rights to the material, an allegorical novel first published in 1945 about the issues that led to the Russian Revolution.
“We are incredibly excited to have finally found the perfect creative home in Netflix for this extraordinary zeitgeist work by George Orwell,” Serkis said in a statement.
“On top of that, to be reunited with my great friend Matt Reeves — with his acute sensitivity, storytelling intelligence and honesty and command in this realm — is to have the very best scenario for our long-held passion to bring this fable alive,” he added.
Serkis is best known for voicing Gollum in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and has starred in the Planet of the Apes films.