Bill Murray (Groundhog Day, Ghostbusters) is just the latest in a long line of star names being cast for this re-make of the ‘Jungle Book’. He joins such talent as Christopher Walken (Man on Fire, Pulp Fiction) who has been cast as King Louie, Ben Kingsley (Schindler’s List, Shutter Island) as Bagheera and Scarlett Johansson (The Avengers, Lucy) as Kaa. Bill Murray himself will play the lovable blue bear we all loved called Baloo. According to Variety’s Dave McNary, ‘The Jungle Book will combine live-action and animation with Jon Favreau(The Avengers, Iron Man 2) directing from a script by Justin Marks.‘ It will be released in 3D and open on Oct 9th 2015.
For those that do not know much about Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book‘, it’s a collection of stories about an abandoned young man-cub called Mowgli. In it he is raised by wolves in the Indian Jungle, who with the aid of Baloo the bear and Bagheera the black panther he fights the tiger Shere Khan. Also in this story, Mowgli is abducted by monkeys headed by their charismatic leader, King Louie.
Disney will have competition over The Jungle Book however, with Warner Bros. announcing that it has its rival project ‘Jungle Book: Origins‘ marked down for release on October 21st 2016. This is because Kipling’s book is actually in the public domain and free to interpretation. Little is known about Warner Bros. adaptation of the Jungle Book, there are no actors/actresses cast yet, but Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings) is set to direct. The script itself was written by debut writer Callie Cloves with her father Steve Cloves (Harry Potter) producing.
