Good news for fans of the upcoming The Jungle Book live-action film adaptation. Through Empire, the makers of the film have released a new image that have us even more eager to see the final product. Take a look.
The film is motion-captured CGI film with a stellar cast, including Scarlett Johansson as Kass the snake, Idris Elba as Shere Khan the tiger and main villain, Bill Murray as Baloo the bear, Christopher Walken as King Louie the orangutan, Ben Kingsley as Bagheera the panther, and Lupita Nyong’o as Raksha the wolf.
Raksha is featured in the new image. She is Mowgli’s (Neel Sethi) adoptive mother and the image is very touching, hinting at the emotional connection to these two characters. She and Mowgli are seen in the rain and with the two other wolves (one possibly the adoptive father Akela played by Giancarlo Esposito) sorrowfully looking on in the background, this reveals that this film might have some more depth than originally thought.
We talked about the film trailer in our Sneak Peek already, which has us on the fence due to the heavy CGI, a look that kind of does away with the “live-action” aspect, but it’s a necessary consolation given the animals involved. Animals have come a long way in movies recently, not notably in Ang Lee’s Life of Pi (2012). That said, just look at that picture above one more time. This is some very convincing CGI to be sure and already, with what the amazing trailers, dispels much of the worry concerned with that all-too-common failure to capture animals realistically in films.
What do you think of this new image? Are you excited for this movie? Let us know in the comments below.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnzf-GMZhio?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0&w=920&h=460]
Director:
Jon Favreau
Writers:
Justin Marks (screenplay), Rudyard Kipling (book)
Stars:
Lupita Nyong’o, Scarlett Johansson, Idris Elba, Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Christopher Walken