Jon Favreau Breathes New Life to Kipling Classic 'The Jungle Book'
The live-action epic adventure showcases Mowgli's journey of self-discovery when he's forced to abandon his home in the forest. And Neel Sethi, who traces his roots to India and plays Mowgli, is only just being in an otherwise animation film.
The film is supported by a stellar voice-over cast including Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong'o, Scarlett Johansson and Christopher Walken.
Favreau also presented a glimpse of his vision by screening portions of the film.
The director explained that by re-imagining the film "you are serving many masters...you are trying to honour the memory, preconceived memory of people who grew up with it, but you are also trying to make a movie that appeals to the full audience -- that is ethically what we set out to do".
"We are trying to pay tribute, and we can also see that with the visual effects, we are pushing the technology. We are mixing the old story with cutting edge technology," he added.
So, how was the film made?
"We went back to the structure of it and saw what Kipling did because he offered a lot. We kind of picked between the two. The story structure of the 1967 film was good and offered a lot; so I stuck to it as much as I could. What I have tried to do is to focus on the images that I remember from it before going back to look at it again," he said.
He is brimming with joy after using "level of artistry and technology" to narrate a story with "humour and emotion, and showing nature, animals, and getting into that real deep mythic imagery that I think always marries well with technology, and always has."
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