Sony Pictures has scored the screen rights to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic pulp hero Tarzan from the author’s estate.
The plan is for a “total reinvention” of the character and intellectual property for modern audiences. No writer, filmmaker, or producers are attached at this point.
The Tarzan story follows an orphaned boy raised in the jungle by apes. As an adult, he falls in love with a young woman named Jane, eventually moves to England with her and learns how barbaric so-called civilization really is. Ultimately he returns to Africa.
First published in 1912, the story has been adapted countless times in live-action and animated form. The most recent attempt was the 2016 big-budget film starring Alexander Skarsgard and Margot Robbie which fizzled at the box-office.
The new reconceived take will likely deal with some of the inherent issues of the original material with its attitudes towards colonialism, white saviour mentality, and dated racial and gender stereotypes.
Source: THR
