Warner Bros. has released the first photos from "The Legend of Tarzan," its upcoming adventure saga featuring the "True Blood" star in the iconic title role.
USA Today first Tweeted a shirtless image of the 39-year-old Swede on Tuesday night, and followed up with another peek at the actor alongside Margot Robbie as Jane.
In an interview published on Wednesday, Alexander told the paper that the new film will be a departure from the story audiences are already familiar with.
"It's almost the opposite of the classic tale, where it's about taming the beast," he said. "This is about a man who's holding back and slowly as you peel off the layers, he reverts back to a more animalistic state and lets that side of his personality out."
Directed by four-time "Harry Potter" auteur David Yates, "The Legend of Tarzan" will swing past Tarzan's rainforest upbringing and instead open upon his post-Congo life in 1880s Victorian London.
When Tarzan receives an invitation from Parliament to return to his stomping grounds, however, he rediscovers his jungle-boy instincts to protect Jane and others from imminent danger.
As Tarzan's beloved, Margot brings a contemporary, feminist quality to her updated Jane, who is "in no way a passive partner to Tarzan," Yates said.
Rather than adopting the damsel-in-distress archetype, he added, the "Focus" and "Suicide Squad" star will present Jane as a fully-realized character with plenty of strength of her own.
"She's a really strong, assertive, beautifully knowledgeable, very sexy modern woman who can more than look after herself," the filmmaker said. "In a way, it's a story of two human beings and how they save each other."
"The Legend of Tarzan," co-starring Djimon Hounsou, Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz, is set for a July 2016 release.