Jungle Book remake
 

Seems there's not one but TWO Jungle Book movies coming out. One by Disney, one by Warner Bros.

No word on who's playing who in the Warner Bros version but in the new Disney version (a hybrid film BTW) Idris Elba has been cast as Sher Khan. 12 Years A Slave actress Lupita Nyong'o is up for the role of the She-Wolf. And in the oddest casting IMO is Scarlet Johansson who is up for the role of Kaa. The heck?!

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/celebrit...=1440_54732923

Hm... I wonder how Disney's will play out. That was the one pre-Pixar Disney animated film that I liked.

I think it'd be cool if Kaa were a female character, but I'd like Kaa to be portrayed as heroic, like in the original Kipling stories. :)

I don't like this idea, Baloo was so awesome and fun in the original film, I don't want that changed thank you :(

While I love the animated Robin Hood flick I could see that being as a better film to be remade.

Why not just think of original ideas though? Walt Disney I don't think would be too happy about this either, wasn't the Jungle Book the last film to be done by him?

Figured I'd resurrect this thread instead of making a new one. Disney has just released the trailer. It actually looks pretty epic!

Hahah...Disney. Original ideas.
That...that's a good one.

I thought it looked spectacularly hollow. Great CGI, but just a lot of Mowgli running and CGI animals.

It's got a great voice cast and it's by Jon Favreau, so I'm still giving it the benefit of the doubt, but this first trailer did nothing for me.

Also, ScarJo as Kaa was a little odd. I did like the "trussssst in me" quote, though.

The trailer was pretty good, at the end of the trailer, was a homage to a classic scene of the original. you hear Baloo whistling the Bear Necessities

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

I liked that, too. It does seem to be sticking pretty close to the original. Which makes me wonder... is this just going to be a straight-up hand-drawn to CGI cutover?

On the one hand, you don't have to worry about them frakking anything up. But on the other... do we really want to pay money to see the same movie, just with updated effects?

Discuss!!! Or, y'know... don't. Whatever. :trazz:

I'd prefer something closer to the source material, to be perfectly honest.

Jon Favreau breaks down the trailer.
https://www.yahoo.com/movies/jon-fav...130133927.html

I can't see Disney doing that. What about the other studio doing a Jungle Book movie next year?

That would actually be a great way to distinguish between the two films; faithful Kipling script and Disney remake script.

Kaa- heroic? I don't remember that in the original story. IIRC correctly, he always just wanted to eat Mowgli. Giant python does NOT = "hero". More like slow death.... I'm tempted to see this one, just because it was one of my favorites.

I think the biggest thing about this trailer is that Mowgli is a kid. A forreal, believable child. That crap blows my mind.

Also, it really looks like they're putting more money into this than their other live-action remakes. None of those movies had a cast like this, either. They're going all in.

Ok Disney. You got me. I'll be in theatres for this. I wasn't keen on Scarlet Johannson as Kaa before but that right there pulled me in. Yeah the animals are mostly CGI but eh it seems to work.

Yeah at least he is a kid like he is supposed to be though I would like to have seen the other characters speak.

same here, it is a fascinating story and I would love to see a big company take a crack at it and bring it to life on the big screen...fat chance with Disney though.

Kaa was a very, very wise snake in the original story and was one of Mowgli's mentors and an ally. If I remember correctly he even hypnotized and ate the monkeys that kidnapped Mowgli in the original story as punishment for their actions. Balloo was also a very wise character and not at all goofy like how he is in the Disney cartoon movie, he teaches Mowgli the laws of the jungle.

So at least one of the songs are in in this movie, cool.

I can't believe that they actually manage to make this look really, really good.

Looks fine to me. I definitely was all "How many live-action Jungle Book movies do we need?" but it looks pretty good, honestly.

Idris Elba is perfect as Shere Khan

I'll admit, I initially wasn't keen on yet another live-action remake from Disney. Regardless of it being of an animated film I actually like or not (though Jungle Book is a favorite of mine admittedly). But upon watching the trailer a couple times through Zootopia, my folks and I agreed it looked decent. Even decided to give the novelization a read. It might be because I have yet to actually see anything that isn't objectionable or isn't giving a "we're pretending to pay tribute to this classic film you know and love but are really going out of our way to spit in it's face cause it really sucked" vibe like Maleficent did.

And seconding on Idris Elba as Shere Khan.

How many do we have?

I've read the original- actually, MOST of Kipling's stories, including the "Just So" ones- and I don't recall Kaa ever being particularly well-intentioned. Any mentoring and/or saving he did for Mowgli was incidental to his purpose of getting a meal out of the encounter. He's basically a more sinister counterpart to Shere Kahn.

So, I actually can not stand the Jungle Book....but I think this looks pretty good.

What Walt Disney did to Kaa in the Disney movie was a insult to the Kaa from the book imo.

In the book, Kaa risk his life to save Mowgli from the monkeys, even getting hurt in the process, after that the 2 were pretty much close friends. If Disney made the movie right, it would be a 3 pal movie with Mowgli, the snake, and the black cat lol.

The bear was more as a teacher to Mowgli than a friend.

Kaa was an old curmudgeonly bad@$$ in the book. And a pretty good take on snakes for the time, unlike Rikki-Tikki-Tavi...

I'm going to scream into an abyss in regards to the social commentary on Rikki-Tikki-Tavi now.

There was the part were Mowgli and Kaa did go swimming in one of the stories. Near the rocks. Kaa was a friend.

Here's 3 new clips.

As much as I don't like the 'Reptiles are Abhorrent/Evil' trope in general, I do find Kaa from the Disney one an exception due to him at least being funny and entertaining whenever he's on screen. Far cry from his original incarnation, yes, but it's fine if they can do something with it and not feel it was a change for the sake of change.

Plus, it doesn't hurt when you got Sterling Holloway voicing him.

Here's a new clip featuring King Louie voiced by Christopher Walken

As a huge Jungle Book fan, Can't wait for both movies :)

There's gonna be alot of comparisons between the two.

I never did like them turning Kaa from hero to villain in films.
1942's jungle book is perhaps the best version imo. I really loved the ending to that master piece.

I gotta say, after watching some of those clips....I'm really not digging the kid who's playing Mowgli.

It might because child actors can rarely act or give good performances, but I feel the other performances from the A-list actors will get all the praise whereas he'll get stuck with being one of the film's weaker aspects.

I would love to be proven wrong and assume these brief clips are just minor scenes where he's not giving it his all, but need I remind people that this is our protagonist, i.e. the character we're going to spend the most time with. If you get an child actor that can't carry his/her's character's story and struggles convincingly and makes you wish any of the supporting cast show up to make something actually interesting happen, then maybe someone who isn't the kid isn't doing their job well.

This is the actor's first film role, so of course he's got some breaking in to do. Granted, he's certainly not like the boy from Les Mis and Into the Woods (the only two films to his name that I can think of...and even then, most of his performance is made up of singing). So, I can't fault him for some slips in performance. He's not going to be absolutely perfect the first time. Hopefully this should be a gateway into new roles where he'll be able to improve.

True, but just because The Last Airbender was Noah Ringer's first role doesn't make it any less bad to sit through. And he too was playing the protagonist. A protagonist who always looked like he was about to cry regardless if the scene was meant to call for it or not.

And just like that, it's getting a sequel

http://variety.com/2016/film/news/ju...au-1201750384/

It currently has a 100% rating on RT.

Most of the praise seems to be directed towards the CGI imagery being dazzling and immersive as well as the cast being excellent. A couple have noted that it is a good adaption to both Rudyard Kipling's original book and the 1967 film. Which is fine and dandy by me.