The Jungle Book

Walt Disney Productions recently announced that a new film 'The Jungle Book' would be being released in 2016 and directed by Jon Favreau. It is is based on Rudyard Kipling's book and the 1967 Disney animated film of the same name. It tells the story of an orphaned boy named Mowgli living out in the jungle and evading Shere Khan, a tiger who wishes to kill him.

It was announced that a live action remake of 'The Jungle Book' was in development on 9 July 2013 with Jon Favreau later being confirmed as director. Fareau stressed the importance of nature and stated that "in Kipling's time, nature was something to overcome. Now nature is something to be protected".


The cast are as follows:
- Neel Sethi as Mowgli
- Bill Murray as Baloo
- Ben Kingsley as Bagheera
- Idris Elba as Shere Khan
- Giancarlo Esposito as Akela
- Lupita Nyong'o as Raksha
- Scarlett Johansson as Kaa
- Christopher Walken as King Louie

Favreau decided to cast Johansson to play Kaa - although originally a male character - as he felt the original film was "a little too male-orientated". Favreau also noticed the lack of female characters in the 1967 film version and wanted to reintroduce Raksha's character more prominently, as she was a key characters in Kipling's tales as well. Lupita Nyong'o was cast as Raksha with Favreau stating that "Lupita has tremendous depth of emotion in her performance. There's an emotional underpinning she brings, and a strength, and we wanted that for this surrogate mother. Much of that comes from her voice." King Louie was also changed from an orang-utan to a Gigantopithecus as orang-utans are not native to India. Favreau stated, "We created this looming figure that trying to extract the secret of fire from Mowgli. And also this gave Mowgli the idea the if he had fire, he could have power over Shere Khan, whether it was good or bad. So there was a Lord of the Rings aspect to that; the fire was almost like the ring that was going to give someone ultimate power, but corrupt them as well as create destruction".

The animal characters were created entirely in key frame computer animation, as well as footage of real animal movement, the actors recording their lines, and performance capture for reference. Nearly 70 separate species of native animals are features in the film, with several species portrayed as "150% larger" than their actual counterparts. Jim Henson's Creature Shop was brought in to provide animal puppet figures for Sethi to act against, although none appear in the finished film. Also, MPC developed new software for animating muscular structure in the animals. As well as this, at Favreau's request, the Walt Disney Pictures opening production logo was transformed into an Indian-style castle and panned across a lagoon towards the jungle.

As of 2 May 2016, the movie had grossed a worldwide total of $714.5 million. It had an IMAX worldwide opening of $20.4 million from 901 IMAX screens - which was a new record for PG rated film. By 24 April, it had grossed a total of $39 million in IMAX screens worldwide. It also made $133 million in ten days and is believed to make over $1 billion in ticket sales by box office analysts.

There were promotional images released - as seen below - with the voice actors and their animal characters.

Following the film's early financial and critical success, Disney have already begun working on a sequel. Favreau is reported to return as director and Neel Sethi is reported to reprise his role of Mowgli. It was announced on 25 April 2016 that Favreau and Marks will return to direct and write, and the sequel could potentially have a release date of sometime between 2017 and 2019.