After several unsuccessful attempts to revive the property, Tarzan’s big-screen adaptation rights have now been acquired by Sony. Tarzan, originally conceived by the brilliant novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs, is the abandoned son of a British Lord and Lady who was abandoned on the coast of Angola and reared by a group of great apes in the African jungle. Tarzan’s story has been adapted for film and television numerous times over the years. Tarzan of the Apes, a silent film from 1918, served as the basis for an animated Disney version in 1999.

In 2016 Warner Bros. was the last major studio to attempt to reinvigorate the Tarzan franchise with Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts director David Yates. While Yates’ The Legend of Tarzan featured an all-star cast that included Alexander Skarsgård, Margot Robbie, Christoph Waltz, and Samuel L. Jackson, the studio reportedly lost an estimated $40 million on the film and the result was savaged by critics. While Warner Bros. had initially hoped the film would spawn a sequel, those plans were shortly dashed following The Legend of Tarzan’s disappointing release.