Stephen Sommers Recreates Tarzan, Lord of the Apes

The Jungle Book director Stephen Sommers is teaming with Warner Bros. to recreate a bigscreen version of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. Collateral screenwriter Stu Beattie will write the project with Sommers, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Jerry Weintraub (Ocean's Eleven) is producing through his Jerry Weintraub Prods.

Guillermo del Toro had been attached to direct a script written by John Collee (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) when the project was announced two years ago. But The Mummy director will get his shot now that Del Toro is committed to a four-year stint choreographing dwarves in New Zealand for MGM-Warner Bros.' next two Hobbits.

Beattie and Sommers do not plan to work from the original 1914 Burroughs tome or any previous film. An entirely new approach is in the works, though more details beyond that are being kept under wraps tighter than Tarzan's loincloth.

No production date has been set.