Jon Favreau is getting back in the family-movie game.
The “Iron Man” director, who previously helmed such family-friendly efforts as “Elf” and “Zathura,” is in talks to direct a new live-action adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” for Disney. Scripted by Justin Marks (“The Raven”), the studio is looking to begin production on the film sometime next year.
“I can”t say that much, but there is an interesting take that could be very cool, and the hope is to relaunch a family brand with certain mythic elements,” Favreau told exclusive-getter Deadline. “It is my first real family film since ‘Elf,’ and there are action elements and visual effects that I feel like my experience on the ‘Iron Man’ films are going to be useful.”
Disney most famously adapted “The Jungle Book” in 1967 with the classic animated musical version, and more recently with a 1994 live-action effort starring Jason Scott Lee as Mowgli, the young boy raised by wolves who is later faced with integrating into human society. The character was the subject of three separate short stories in Kipling’s 1894 book, a collection of fables that also included the tale of courageous mongoose “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.”
Do you think Favreau is the right choice to direct a new version of the “Jungle Book”? Sound off in the comments.