Andy Serkis’s animated take on Animal Farm bowed on 9 June at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, ending a fourteen-year quest to retell George Orwell’s fable for a new generation. The director told reporters the story “had to be animated” so viewers could keep a sense of innocence while confronting tyranny.
Serkis first boarded the project in 2011, steered it through a stalled Netflix pact in 2018 and finally placed production at London-based Cinesite in April 2022 with partners Aniventure and his own Imaginarium. Goodfellas is now selling the film worldwide, yet a domestic distributor has not been announced. The 96-minute feature showcases an ensemble that includes Seth Rogen, Gaten Matarazzo, Kieran Culkin, Glenn Close and Laverne Cox, while Serkis voices both Mr. Jones and Old Major.
Calling the picture a “cinematic storybook” and “political fairytale,” Serkis said he sought internalised emotion over pantomime and found that stylised CG let him escape the “too heavy-handed” feel of live action. He argued that animation allows audiences to “fill in the dots” and keep empathy alive even as power corrupts.
Reaction at Annecy has been mixed: World of Reel reported surprise at flatulence gags and a softer tone that some viewers felt blunted Orwell’s bite. Variety’s first-look footage, however, praised painterly lighting and an eclectic soundtrack, suggesting ambitions well beyond standard family fare.
The release lands seventy years after the CIA-funded 1954 cartoon that rewrote the novel’s ending for Cold War audiences, a reminder that adaptations of Animal Farm have long been shaped by their moment. By framing the plot through a new piglet named Lucky, Serkis hopes viewers will recognise present-day power struggles while staying emotionally tethered to the animals that first captivated him on a childhood bus ride.
