Mowgli's trailer gives glimpse into Jungle Book's darkest adaptation

The first trailer for Mowgli, the gritty adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is finally here.

Actor and filmmaker Andy Serkis promises that the movie will be a be a darker telling of the story of feral child Mowgli, who is brought up by wolves in the forest and battles the fire-scarred tiger Shere Khan and intolerant humans in his attempt to be accepted again by society.

Rohan Chand stars as Mowgli and the cast also includes Christian Bale as Bagheera, the panther, Benedict Cumberbatch as Shere Khan, the tiger, and Cate Blanchett as Kaa, the python among others; Serkis himself has provided the voice of Baloo the bear, who befriends Mowgli.

“Ours is for a slightly older audience,” Serkis told Vulture in an interview about the Warner Bros production.

“It’s a PG-13, more a kind of Apes movie, a slightly darker take, closer to Rudyard Kipling’s. It’s a story of an outsider, someone who is trying to accept the laws and customs of a particular way of living and then has to adapt to another culture, a human culture, which of course he should be able to adapt to, because this is what he is. So it’s about two different species and their laws and customs, and neither are entirely right.”

Mowgli hits cinemas October 19, 2018.