10 Big 2018 Movies You Should Be Worried About

5. Jungle Book (2018)

Andy Serkis Jungle Book
Warner Bros.

Reason To Be Worried: It will re-tread ground that was all-but perfected in 2016.

Even though we just had a Jungle Book movie with Disney and Jon Favreau's live-action/CGI hybrid, Warner Bros are still moving full-steam ahead with their own version, with mo-cap master Andy Serkis in the director's chair.

But... why?

Serkis' version will be rendered in a similar fashion, with photo-realistic animals and environments. It'll tell the same, classic Jungle Book story, with a few minor differences. It's coming out two years after Favreau's effort, which was a roaring success both critically and commercially - and a sequel has already been announced. Is making this movie the right choice?

There are a couple of equally-worrying scenarios here. One, Serkis and Warner Bros choose to make their film as different as possible to avoid comparisons with the Disney version, and lose that Jungle Book magic in the process. Or two, Serkis and Warner Bros just tell the same story... with the same CGI/live-action style... and invoke a serious sense of déjà vu in their audiences.

Serkis is a unique talent so it would be a shame to see him crash and burn with Jungle Book, but it's hard to shake the feeling that this movie is a bad idea.

In this post: 
Han Solo
 
Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!