Serkis and Cave plan to adapt German musical

Andy Serkis just loves him some mo-cap.

The Gollum actor is pairing up with Nick Cave to produce a motion capture update of classic German musical The Threepenny Opera .

Created by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, the original show was loosely adapted from an 18th century ballad opera, which critiqued the capitalist world in the way that only Marxism can.

Threepenny follows anti-hero Macheath, aka Mack the Knife, who marries Polly Peachum, but then faces the wrath of her father, who attempts to exert his power over London's homeless and have Mack hanged.

No further details about the project have been released, aside from the announcement of the project in Berlin, where the show was first performed in 1928.

Expect Serkis to don the leotard and provide the acting heft, while we can probably rely on Cave for jazzy interpretations of the original's tunes.


Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.