It looks like Tarzan will swing his way back into theaters, as Sony Pictures has officially acquired the rights to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ iconic character. They seemingly seek a “total reinvention” of intellectual property and might bring the iconic character into the modern era, though details remain under warps. It should be noted that they have no writer, director, or even producer attached to any project, as they only have acquired the rights and have not yet set anything else into motion for the project.
Tarzan is no stranger to the silver screen, as the most recent project featured Alexander Skarsgard and Margot Robbie back in 2016. While the character is quite beloved, especially for the 1999 animated film by Disney and Phil Collins‘ iconic score, the book has been scrutinized for some of the ideas it places into the world. It hasn’t aged gracefully and there have been challenges in bringing it into the modern age.
The interesting aspect about Sony acquiring the rights is that Tarzan technically is in both the private and public domain. It seems that what they mainly acquired was the trademark for the character of Tarzan, though the exact details of the deal are uncertain as of now. Still, it looks like Sony is trying to get its hands on more IPs to keep up with other studios and quite interesting to see how they might bring this character into he 21st century.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
