Just a couple of days after it was announced that mega-budget movie Star Trek Beyond was getting more inclusive by show Sulu to be gay, it’s been revealed that The Legend Of Tarzan nearly included a same sex kiss. However, it was cut before it reached cinemas.
The scene featured Waltz’s villainous character, Captain Rom, kissing Tarzan while he the man raised by apes was unconscious. However, director David Yates told The Australian, “We pared it back because it was almost too much. It was this really odd, odd moment when Christoph kisses him.”
Yates adds that, “We loved it at the time, but early test audiences were perplexed by it and in the end it just felt too clever and overworked.”
It is an odd one, as it sounds like it was making literal a rather hackneyed stereotype of the bad guy having hidden desires for the hero, which harks back to the days when making villains a bit gay and closeted was used to underline just how evil they were. However, Yates’ comments also hint that the decision to cut the kiss may have been less a genuinely creative decision and more about fears that with hundreds of millions on the line, they were worried about audience reaction to ‘gay stuff’, which is one of the main things currently holding back LGBT inclusion in major movies. Hopefully though it was that they simply realised it was a bad idea and didn’t work.
After quite a few sequels have bombed this summer, Warner will be hoping the big bet they’ve taken on people being interested in a new Tarzan movie will be lining up next month for The Legend Of Tarzan. They’ll also be hoping it wasn’t a mistake to have director David Yates doing post-production on both this film and Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them at the same time, with the movies hitting cinemas only fourth months apart.
Many believe Warner Bros. have taken a big gamble with The Legend Of Tarzan, not necessarily because of the subject, but because they’ve ended up with director David Yates doing post-production on two of their biggest movies at the same time. He’s working on both this and the Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them, with the two films due out only four months apart.
The tales of Tarzan certainly looks like it’s gotten dramatic and moody if this first trailer for the big budget live-action take on Edgar Rice Burrough’s character is anything to go by. It also looks like the special effects wizards have got their work cut out for them, as there’s plenty of spectacle to behold (including Alexander Skargard’s abs).
After delays and problems over the budget, David Yates’ Tarzan movie in moving forward once again. The likes of Alexander Skarsgard are already onboard, but the project has been searching around for a Jane. Numerous names have been mentioned, but now it appears they’ve found the woman they want, as 
Alexander Skarsgard and Christoph Waltz may have some company in Warner Bros.’ live action take on Tarzan, as 
Often when a movie gets delayed, it’s a polite way of saying we’ll never hear anything about it again. It appeared that might happen to David Yates’ new live-action take on Tarzan, when in April Warner put the brakes on due to the high budget. Even the production office was shut down, which is usually a sign of impending doom.
David Yates made Warner Bros a lot of money with his Harry Potter movie, but that doesn’t mean he gets the automatic greenlight for whatever he wants to do next. He’s been planning a new take on Tarzan, with Alexander Skargard set to don the loin cloth, with rumours Jessica Chastain could be his Jane.