Andy Serkis and Matt Reeves are the perfect team to tackle the film adaptation of Animal Farm.

Netflix has acquired the rights to George Orwell’s classic novella Animal Farm. Andy Serkis will direct the performance-capture adaptation while Matt Reeves will serve as one of the film’s producers.

Serkis and Reeves previously worked closely together on the critically acclaimed films Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes. Reeves directed both films and co-wrote War while Serkis starred as Caesar.

By developing character and theme instead of spectacle, these prequel films always seemed to be far better than they had any right to be. The direction of Reeves and the performance of Serkis gave the films an authentic sense of heart and humanity. They also made the films’ overarching themes feel modern and relevant.

This makes Reeves and Serkis perfect for bringing Animal Farm to life, especially at a time when if done right, the film will feel particularly relevant to its audiences. Co-producer Jonathan Cavendish is firm on this point, asserting that they will bring “Animal Farm to the screen in a thoroughly contemporary fashion, which will highlight the staggering relevance today of the satirical and dramatic power of Orwell’s re-imagined classic.”

While their films were prequels and not a direct adaptation of the original 1968 Planet of the Apes film, Reeves and Serkis were able to smartly use the source material in order to create new stories from the perspectives of apes that felt real, thought-provoking, and engaging. That success certainly lends itself to now adapting a powerful and contemporary adaptation of an allegorical tale told through the perspective of animals.

Tackling the animals themselves is another challenge, one they’re prepared to handle by making it a performance-capture film. Andy Serkis is the master of performance-capture. In addition to Caesar, he’s played Gollum/Smeagol in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, King Kong in the 2005 version, and Supreme Leader Snoke in the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

Having brought many of the most iconic performance-capture characters to life, Serkis understands better than anyone how to make them the best they can be. As a director he has the rare and invaluable perspective of what it’s like for an actor to play a performance-capture character.

Prepare to see the best onscreen versions yet of Napoleon, Snowball, Boxer, and all the rest. It sounds like these characters and their stories will feel contemporary while also staying faithful to the source material.