Andy Serkis' Animal Farm just got a new trailer, but you shouldn't watch it

The two versions paint very different versions of the 2026 George Orwell adaptation

If you weren't already aware that Andy Serkis, star of the Lord of the Rings and Planet of the Apes franchises, was making a new animated adaptation of George Orwell's classic allegory Animal Farm, you may have been surprised to run across the new trailer for the film. Released Monday, it showcases a version of the story that looks a lot like Orwell's, except with modern kid-movie pacing, chase sequences, goofy gags, and a celebrity cast, including Seth Rogen and Glenn Close.

That's a bizarre choice: Orwell's 1945 novel is an allegorical retelling of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the schisms that followed. In Orwell's view, idealism and a "government by the people, for the people" movement gave way to propaganda, betrayal, and the rise of an oppressive oligarchy that reversed the revolution's ideals. In the book, the basic historical events take place on a farm, among animals who rise up against their human oppressors, but soon see new animal oppressors taking humanity's place. Animal Farm's horrifying story has been held up for decades as a smart, nuanced, but kid-accessible illustration of how fascism rises in governmental systems. It doesn't feel compatible with cutesy one-liners and pop-music needle drops.

What's strange, though, is that the new trailer presents the movie as if it's directly, faithfully adapting Orwell's work, apart from the tone shifts. And that represents a substantial reversal from a previous trailer that seems like a much more accurate representation of what's going on in the movie. Here's the new trailer:

This new version of the trailer cherry-picks scenes that stick to the basic facts of Orwell's book: When a group of farm animals realize they're destined for the slaughterhouse, they drive their human overlords off of the farm and begin to run it themselves according to a series of agreed-upon laws, including "All animals are equal" and "Four legs good, two legs bad."

But an earlier trailer that dropped in December gives a much clearer picture of a radically different movie. This version of the film is a science fiction/fantasy story that takes Orwell's text as inspiration and framework, but heads in a direction much more like Aardman Animation's Chicken Run. Glenn Close's character, Freida Pilkington, appears as a high-tech mastermind manipulating Napoleon (Rogen) and the other farm animals. The farm itself seems to have a very different relationship with humanity and the outside world than it does in Orwell's novel (or the newer trailer). Napoleon, the farm's biggest betrayer, appears to fall further and faster than in the book.

The December trailer gives the sense of a radical re-imagining of Animal Farm that would sit comfortably on the shelf next to fluffy crowd-pleasers like Sing. The departures from Orwell's text feel much more expansive and creative, as if Serkis and screenwriter Nicholas Stoller (Bros, The Muppets, Zoolander 2) are designing their own kids' story loosely inspired by Orwell's work. It's hard to imagine a modern version of the story, with this comic tone, embracing Orwell's finale: The original book leaves the common animals in slavery, their most beloved heroes dead, their new oppressors triumphant. (A 1954 animated adaptation retold Orwell's story fairly faithfully, but added a final brief coda where the betrayed revolutionary animals revolt again.) But the version showcased in this earlier trailer feels a lot more compatible with a happy ending, and any other liberties the filmmakers want to take.

The new trailer comes with a new statement from Serkis, explaining his vision:“We wanted to speak directly to an audience we recognize today. There was a fantastic, animated version of Animal Farm in 1954, but that was made for its time. This adaptation is about speaking in the common parlance and vernacular of now. That was reflected in the voice work — encouraging the cast to truly make the characters their own. We wanted it to feel contemporary and to genuinely connect with younger audiences by choosing a language they could relate to.”

The 2026 Animal Farm hits theaters on May 1. It was produced by Angel Studios, the largely Christian-themed company behind live-action films such as Sound of Freedom and animated films including The King of Kings. The voice cast includes Jim Parsons,

Woody Harrelson, Steve Buscemi, Kathleen Turner, Laverne Cox, Kieran Culkin, Ms. Marvel's Iman Vellani, Gaten Matarazzo, and Serkis himself.