Disney's live-action "The Jungle Book" coming to theaters in 2016

[DARTH MUPPET]

the Animals look so real, but they are all CGI, AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!! the only real person is Mowgli!

I will be seeing this in the theater for sure!

 

[D'Snowth]

Ah, yes, more of Disney's, "We're desperately out of ideas, so let's keep rehashing old movies from the Disney Canon, but make them live action so they'll be cheaper to produce," movies.

 

[Drtooth]

There's a reason for that. Maleficent and Cinderella actually were big hits. Why not cash in on that?

It's hardly the first live action Jungle Book movie Disney has done, and frankly, I'll take this over that piece of garbage Jungle Book 2 movie. I was going to say Disney doesn't even own Jungle Book... I mean, 2 other not Disney live action Jungle Book movies are in the works (no, really!). They don't even own the rights to Louie's voice (thank Louis Prima's widow for that). But this is clearly the Disney "throw the actual book out the window" version where Baloo is the fun one and Baghera is the stuffy one (it's quite the other way around). I'm intrigued by it, but don't know if I'll bother quite yet.

Still, there's something magical about Disney's "ignore the heck out of the book and throw a timely Beatles parody in there, but have them sing barbershop" version. The music almost kinda... wasn't good (if you have one of the special edition DVD's, you know what I'm talking about), and the celebrity casting made the film. Made a key scene and we all know which one that was. It's one of my favorite Disney films and it spawned like my third or fourth favorite Disney Afternoon cartoon by (heh heh) ignoring the freaking Jungle Book entirely and just using the characters in an alternate reality.

 

[Muppy]

To be completely honest I didn't like the trailer at all. I'm sick of Disney remaking all of their classic animated films into these Live-Action movies that in my opinion haven't been very good. None of them have. And I'm not expecting them to get any better (except for maybe Beauty & the Beast. I'm hoping that one's at least re-watchable like the original). All of the Live Action fairy tales have lost a lot of the magic that the animated versions had.

There's also been an announcement of a Mary Poppins Sequel/Reboot/Remake that everywhere you look someone's telling you a different version of what's going to happen and what type of movie it is (some sites claim it takes place 20 years in the future but also say it's not a sequel which doesn't make ANY sense). I'm just going to say it now; you can't make a Mary Poppins movie without Julie Andrews.

 

[mr3urious]

I'm going to say "meh" on this.

The Mary Poppins sequel, on the other hand... well, Disney is supposedly using the later 7 books in the series for the source, so I can't roll my eyes at that too much.

 

[Drtooth]

To be completely honest I didn't like the trailer at all. I'm sick of Disney remaking all of their classic animated films into these Live-Action movies that in my opinion haven't been very good. None of them have. And I'm not expecting them to get any better (except for maybe Beauty & the Beast. I'm hoping that one's at least re-watchable like the original). All of the Live Action fairy tales have lost a lot of the magic that the animated versions had.

I personally think this is a too many eggs in one basket situation. They announced all these live action reimaginings of their own versions of movies as soon as Maleficent hit. And something tells me they were darn lucky to a point. This will come crashing down on them at some point.

Yet... considering how meh their 101 Dalmatians (Video Game designer? No one writes songs anymore?) and their horrible sequel turned out (yeah. Emperor's New Groove is the movie released at that time Disney was embarrassed about), they are at least attempting something with these. And yes, I have to have a shout out to how horrible their live action versions of old cartoons were (except George of the Jungle, which is surprisingly close to the series in spirit, even the cheapquel). But, well... with Maleficent, they at least altered the movie to be from the perspective of the villain. These seem to be slightly edgier (imperceptibly so) versions of their cartoon movies.

Still, given that this was the studio that was all about making unwanted sequels to animated movies (some could have actually had good follow ups, but didn't) I don't know what to make of these. Sure, Lion King 2 was actually good and YMMV on the Aladdin sequels (the first was a good pilot to the TV show, the third was pretty good, but mostly for Robin Williams coming back)`. But we had like 3 Tarzan movies (and a show) which none of them bothered with the lost Duke (or Earl or whatever) story, a Hercules sequel which was disappointingly 3 episodes of the cartoon (where they did pitch a sequel that was ..heh..the story that the original film would have had), and a dumb Beauty and the Beast Christmas special "midquel." And the second Goofy Movie would have been better without being a commercial for the X-Games on Disney owned ESPN, but was kinda fun over all.

 

[DARTH MUPPET]

What Did you guys think of Iron Man 1 and 2 and Cowboys And Aliens? I thought they were Great fun movies and they have the same Director as The Jungle Book, Jon Favreau, I love Jon Favreau he is a very underrated Director. I personally love everything Disney Is doing and think Bob Iger is an innovator and much better then Michael Eisner. I think The Jungle Book looks fantastic and am also looking forward to the Jungle Book that comes out years after this one Directed and staring in Andy Serkis and that one is not Disney.....

plus Favreau was a fan of the Original cartoon as I was as a kid as well but wanted to make this more based on the book with little homages to the original cartoon! The cast is filled with Oscar nominated, and winners Actors and Actresses and can anyone on here honestly tell me the Animals didn't look fantastic and real, because they definitely did !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Drtooth]

Unlike others, I feel this has the potential to be good. I like the idea of Bill Murray as Baloo at least. Baloo has always been one of my favorite Disney characters (Jungle Book and Talespin, natch). Only kinda words I can say about the cheapquel Jungle Book 2 movie was John Goodman did a great job as that character. Wonder why they didn't use him here, but it's Bill Murray. So yeah... Bill Murray as Baloo does peak my interest.

Still, there's this weird Jungle Book fad going around. Disney isn't the only studio with one in production. And of course, those will be closer to the book. There's that odd Jungle Book CGI series that they dumped onto Redboxes in the guise of a knockoff of the Disney movie when it actually wasn't. Didn't get around to catching an episode, so I wouldn't be able to comment on that.

It's just...strange that this particular story has become popular as of late.

 

[DARTH MUPPET]

It Is A classic Book that everyone just about either read the book or saw the Cartoon when they were kids or in my parents case they saw the Black And White adaptation in the 1950's and then when my parents were in there early 20's they took my moms nephews to see the Disney Cartoon when her nephews were little boys, so I think it is just a really popular story throughout the ages. If there is one Disney movie I am not looking forward to it is the sequel to Marry Poppins I hate Marry Poppins, although I loved Finding MR Banks. I love everything else Disney is Doing Especially but not in any particular order, Star Wars, Pixar,The Muppets, and Marvel I absolutely Loved Pixar's Inside Out and can't wait for The Good Dinosaur,The Incredable 2,Finding Dory, Toy Story 4 and every other great thing Pixar has planed or has come out with I also love Disney Toon Studios, most notably, Wreck It Ralph and Big Hero Six. and so far I love Muppets 2011 and Muppets Most Wanted I would love to see a third movie with the same director and group of film makers, and the TV show that debuts this Tuesday looks really good.

 

[Drtooth]

Huh... The Jungle Book has made over 900 million worldwide

I really think Disney didn't expect this to be as big of a hit as it was. And it still has to hit Japan and South Korea. Kudos to them on that, and I guess makes up for the Alice movie not doing well.