Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book Stories Come Alive In Live-Action Movie Adaptation By Disney

"Are you alone out here? What are you doing so deep in the jungle? Don't you know what you are? I know what you are. I know where you came from. Poor sweet little cub. I'll keep you close. Let go of your fear now. And trust in me."

Such is the voice-over for the first full trailer for The Jungle Book, a live-action movie adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's classic story collection of the same name. The humidity-coated voice belongs to Scarlett Johansson who plays the character Kaa in the film. Kaa is described in Kipling's stories as an exceptionally long and yellowish Indian rock python.

The trailer also showed glimpses of major scenes in the film as well as the main characters like Mowgli (the jungle boy), Baloo the bear, Bagheera the black panther, Shere Khan the tiger, and King Louie the orangutan. Directed by Jon Favreau - the man behind Iron Man and Iron Man 2 - The Jungle Book is scheduled to be released on April 15 next year. Playing the titular character in the movie is Neel Sethi. Also in the cast are Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idirs Elba, Lupita Nyong'o, Christopher Walken, and Giancarlo Esposito (that poker-faced villain from Breaking Bad).

This is the second time that Disney has created a motion picture based on Kipling's stories. Their first foray in bringing the stories to the big screen was in 1967 when they released the now-classic animated film The Jungle Book.

Watch the trailer for Jon Favreau's adaptation below:

Warner Bros. Pictures is also working on a live-action film based on the stories called Jungle Book: Origins. Andy Serkis is directing as well as starring in the film which is penciled for a 2017 release. The main cast for the movie is currently composed of Rohan Chand, Matthew Rhys, Freida Pinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Jack Reynor, and Tom Hollander.