It’s taken over a decade, but Andy Serkis has finally brought his long-gestating adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm to the screen. The animated adaptation of George Orwell’s 1945 classic premiered Monday night at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
Introducing the film ahead of the screening, Serkis reflected on the project’s turbulent journey from conception to completion. “We’ve been trying to create a version of George Orwell’s extraordinary fable for well over a decade, and it’s been an incredibly challenging conundrum with many twists and turns along the way,” he said.
The idea for the film was born during the filming of Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2011, when Serkis, who plays Caesar, the leader of a rebellious army of simians overthrowing their the human masters, thought the time was right for a “retelling, a modern retelling,” of Orwell’s 1945 classic. “It was around the time my friend and producing partner Jonathan Cavendish and I were forming [animation studio] The Imaginarium,” he recalled. “We thought it would be our first movie. We were wrong, very wrong.”
The project was shopped to several studios, eventually landing at Netflix in 2018. But the streamer ditched the film a few years later. It was only with the help of U.K. partners Cinesite and Aniventure that Animal Farm, now transformed from Imaginarium’s motion capture style to a fully animated CGI movie, made it to the screen.
Serkis keeps the spine of Orwell’s novella, about a group of oppressed farm animals who rebel against their human oppressors, only to repeat the humans’ mistakes, but his version takes a few liberties. The original was a political allegory for Soviet Russia in the 1920s and ’30s. The targets of Serkis’ Animal Farm are more contemporary. Napoleon, the pig who takes despotic control of the farm following the revolution — voiced with haughty gusto by Seth Rogen — bears an uncanny resemblance to the current occupant of the White House. Glenn Close, in full Cruella de Vil mode as a billionaire agro-magnate who wants to take over Animal Farm for her own nefarious ends, drives a Cybertruck-esque SUV.
[embedded content]
The references, says Serkis, were unintentional. “We started years before some of these events occurred,” he notes, adding that “there are enough despots around the world using the same divisive techniques — misinformation, disinformation — to control people. That’s what we wrote about years ago.”
The single-biggest change from Orwell is the addition of Lucky, a young pig and audience surrogate, voiced by Gaten Matarazzo, who is caught between Snowball (Laverne Cox), the progressive pragmatist, who started the Animal Farm revolution, and Napoleon’s seductive charisma. “That was my invention,” said Serkis. “I thought if we put kids in the driver’s seat of the moral conundrum, it would land more powerfully.”
Animal Farm is currently seeking distribution. Goodfellas Animation is selling the film worldwide.
Serkis spoke to The Hollywood Reporter at Annecy about the film’s decade-long gestation, adapting Orwell for today’s fractured world, and the risks of making a politically charged animated film: “We’re not listening to any algorithms—we wanted to begin a debate while entertaining animals and humans of all ages.”
You’ve made a lot of changes in this adaptation. Do you see this as a version of Animal Farm, an adaptation, or something only inspired by the original?
I think that’s a fair question. We worked very closely with the Orwell estate. We told them from the start that we wanted to do a version where, if George Orwell were writing it today — and this was more than ten years ago — what would his targets be? What would he be talking about? It’s an eternally relevant book, always about the corruption of innocence. Orwell wrote it to explain authoritarianism to children, or rather, to young, inquisitive minds — to show how adults aren’t always trustworthy.
But you don’t think you’ve diverged far from Orwell’s intention?
No, not at all. Most of the major plot points are intact. Sure, it’s not a windmill in our version — it’s a watermill — but that’s symbolic. The ending, too: In the book, the animals look through the window and can’t tell the pigs from the men. We have that moment, but we also live in such a bleak world, and we didn’t want to end on a fake, upbeat note. At the same time, we didn’t want to leave people feeling hopeless. So, within an Orwellian context, we asked: what now? After history repeats itself, how do we break the cycle next time?
This film has been in the works for over a decade. Did the story change as it went through different studios and production phases?
The core story — Lucky’s journey — was always there. That was my invention. I thought if we put kids in the driver’s seat of the moral conundrum, it would land more powerfully. Lucky is caught between Snowball, who’s a pragmatic idealist working for the greater good, and Napoleon, who’s charismatic and fun at first. Like A Bronx Tale, you’ve got someone caught between a figure of responsibility and one who’s dangerous but alluring. When the innocent makes the wrong choice, that’s where the tension and humor come from. We always planned Napoleon’s descent into tyranny to be gradual — charming at first, then darker. Nick Stoller helped shape the script and added a lot of humor, and we’ve made only minor adjustments since then.
The film feels very current, even futuristic at times — like the appearance of what looks like a Tesla Cybertruck. Were those modern elements added later?
That Cybertruck-like design was done three or four years ago, before those trucks were really on the road. We’re not saying this is about Trump — that would be absurd. Orwell’s ideas are far bigger. Trump will be gone in a few years. We want this film to last, to be watched in 10 or 15 years and still feel relevant. That’s why we set it slightly in the future.
Did the real world influence your tone or themes as the project progressed?
It wasn’t partisan. There are enough despots around the world using the same divisive techniques — misinformation, disinformation — to control people. That’s what we wrote about years ago. We’ve become siloed individuals who don’t look beyond ourselves. That’s the societal condition we were responding to. People everywhere should be able to see their own oppressors in this story.
Were there moments during the writing or production when you saw world events unfolding and thought, “This is straight out of our film”?
Absolutely. When we watch the film now, it sometimes feels like we were directly referencing things that happened later — but we couldn’t have been. We started years before some of those events occurred.
Why was it so hard to get this film made? You had a classic novel, a socially relevant message, and a phenomenal cast. What were the roadblocks?
Marketing fear, really. People didn’t know who this was for. There’s this perception of Animal Farm as this porridgey, medicinal school text. Some were afraid it was too political, or that it might corrupt young minds. Others questioned whether it was a four-quadrant family film. And we’ve never seen it as a family film in that traditional sense. It’s a film for people of all ages. There’s a difference. We’re not dumbing things down for kids or throwing in jokes just to amuse adults. It’s a cohesive vision. Thankfully, our partners at Aniventure let us make the film we wanted. They respected the integrity of the script and the design from the very beginning.
Does the film have distribution lined up yet?
Not yet — it’s still wide open at the moment. So, it’s a very interesting time for us. The journey isn’t over.
Would you consider doing more Orwell adaptations? Maybe an animated version of 1984?
Not necessarily. But I would love to make more animated films. I didn’t think I would, especially midway through this — because animation takes forever. The production process is glacial. But I’ve learned so much and really love the final result. I’ve always loved animation, and I’m thrilled to have had the chance to make this one.