Andy Serkis explains his adaptation of ANIMAL FARM will shift the satirical perspective to the present day

Andy Serkis worked on developing an adaptation of George Orwellit is the classic novel Animal farm For years. The film is currently in production at visual effects company Cinesite and I’m curious to see how Serkis handles the source material.

Well, as you’d expect, it’s changing a few things. Animal farm tells the story of a group of farm animals who successfully rebel against their cruel human master, only to be enslaved again by the unscrupulous pig Napoleon, whose catchphrase is “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”.

The original story is a satirical commentary on Stalin and the system he introduced after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in the Soviet Union. This new film will not target Stalinist Russia, but instead shift its satirical perspective on what is happening now in the present day.

During a Toronto Comicon panel, Serkis shared that he worked closely with George Orwell’s estate to update the narrative without betraying the author’s intentions. He explained:

“[I]It’s very, very contemporary. There’s also a lot of humor and it also has a particular point of view.”

Regarding that particular point of view, Serkis said:

“I mean, look around the world, what’s going on, you can see how eternally relevant that book still is. But the ways and the language of telling that story have changed. And the targets, the characters that are being satirized are not Stalin and Trotsky and all those people, they’re – I’m not going to say who.”

While he won’t say who, it’s not hard to figure out who he’s talking about. Regardless, history has a tendency to repeat itself. It’s as if people never learn from the horrible mistakes of the past.

Source: /Film