Despite how it may seem, it’s not all just Star Wars and Marvel over at Walt Disney Pictures these days. One of the Mouse House’s biggest franchises (of a sort) has been their recent slate of live-action adaptations of their classic animated films. Beginning with 2010’s Alice in Wonderland and continuing with Maleficent and Cinderella, Disney has met with tremendous success with these adaptations. The latest animated classic to get the live-action treatment will be The Jungle Book, which is directed by Iron Man’s Jon Favreau.
Now Walt Disney Pictures has released the first part of a triptych poster for The Jungle Book, featuring King Louie (voiced by Christopher Walken) and the serpent Kaa (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). The second part of the poster will be released on Wednesday, with the final part arriving this coming Thursday. Although the film is set to be a faithful adaptation of the original 1967 animated film, some changes were made, like presenting Kaa as a female and having King Louie as an extinct gigantopithecus instead of an orangutan, since orangutans not being native to India.
The Jungle Book was shot entirely on soundstages, using a combo of standard CGI and motion capture, and will feature a veritable who’s who of stars as the voices of the animals. Among the cast are Idris Elba as the tiger Shere Khan, Sir Ben Kingsley as the panther Bagheera, Lupita Nyong’o as Raksha the wolf, Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito as Akela, and in a perfect bit of casting, national treasure Bill Murray as Baloo the bear. Newcomer Neel Sethi is cast as the human lead character Mowgli.
The Jungle Book is set to be released on April 15th. You can see the first full poster below:
IMAGE: Walt Disney Pictures