Live-Action Jungle Book Planned The king swings again Source: Variety
There has, as we know, been only one version of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book that really mattered and it featured an ape who wanted to be like you (oo-hoo) and a bear who was insistent on showing a young boy his prickly pears. There was a live-action 1942 version by Zoltan Korda and another in 1994 that asked terrible things of John Cleese, Jason Flemyng and Sam Neill and his silly moustache. But neither feature any animals that even attempted to vocalise their thoughts, so we couldn't be expected to take them seriously.
Which all leads us, in rather laboured fashion, to a new version of The Jungle Book, which will make its animals both live-action and gabby. The $50million co-production between Pathe and the BBC will be directed by John Downer, from a script by Richard Kurti and Bev Doyle. Now, the interesting thing about Downer is that he's not a film director, but a nature documentary director. So presumably we can expect a Planet Earth style look at the relationships between a small boy raised by wolves, kidnapped by monkeys and rescued by animal chums. Just with, y'know, more talking and less tearing of limb from limb.
A short trawl of Downer's CV also revealed that he directed episodes of the 80s talky-critter show Animal Magic, so we know we're in safe hands here.
Sorry, I was under the impression that Pride was a documentary. Have removed reference to it, so now nobody need know I ever got it wrong. Wait...dammit! ... Read More
I watched the program "Pride" in 2004 and It wasn't a documentary. I featured live-action animals talking with the voices of robbie coltrane, kate winslet, etc. kind of like what this jungle book adaptation is going to be. Do tell me if i've got the wrong program, but i rather doubt it. ... Read More
L: Primus
I kinda liked the 90s version... not a very faithful version, but entertaining in a daft way. Before Stephen Sommers got bigger budgets and unleashed the awful Van Helsing on us...
sp;
i liked that one a lot! ... Read More
I kinda liked the 90s version... not a very faithful version, but entertaining in a daft way. Before Stephen Sommers got bigger budgets and unleashed the awful Van Helsing on us... ... Read More
