Kellan Lutz is to star as Tarzan in a new motion-capture movie.

The Twilight Saga actor has signed up to play the titular character in a new 3-D production, and Resident Evil actress Spencer Locke is in talks to take up the role of heroine Jane, Deadline reports. Reinhard Klooss and Holger Tappe will direct the fully animated CGI motion picture and Reinhard is also producing the project with Robert Kulzer as well as penning the script alongside Yoni Brenner and Jessica Postigo.

The movie will be inspired from the classic Edgar Rice Burroughs story about the jungle hero, whose parents will be billionaire adventurers who are killed in an airplane crash in the new Tarzan motion picture instead of being marooned with their child. The production - which is being developed by Constantin Film - will also see Tarzan go up against the Chief Executive of Greystoke Energies after he takes over the company from the jungle star's deceased parents.

Kellan is famed for starring as Emmett Cullen in the Twilight Saga franchise, with the latest instalment, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, set for release in November. But the 27-year-old hunk recently admitted he would love a part in the next Hunger Games movie because he thinks it will be more "action-packed" than the vampire film franchise: "I love the script, I love the movie, everything about it. I feel like 'Twilight's kind of more girly and on the romance side and lacks the action, and then Hunger Games is very much an action-packed movie that lacks some of the romance."