Disney’s live-action The Jungle Book remake is “shockingly good,” for both precocious children and jaded film critics. (It also made a shocking amount of money this weekend.) But there’s one part of the film that’s just for mom and dad. Nope, not a hardcore sex scene between Baloo and Bagheera — that was deleted after the second draft — but a clever SNL reference.
If you’ve seen the Disney movies, you’ll recall the scene where Mowgli is kidnapped by vine-swinging monkeys and taken to King Louie, the animated orangutan-turned-motion-capture Gigantopithecus. (He doesn’t appear in Rudyard Kipling’s original collection of stories because orangutans aren’t native to India.) In the 2016 version, he’s voiced by Christopher Walken, and because “no one knew what (the Gigantopithecus) looked like,” according to director Jon Favreau, Louie looks like the Catch Me If You Can star, too.
The Walken connections don’t end there:
The director also planted an Easter egg inside the scene for die-hard Walken fans. When man-cub Mowgli rummages through Louie’s treasures as the ape sleeps, it’s a cowbell that rouses him — a nod to Walken’s iconic SNL skit. (Via Entertainment Weekly)
Between this and the Breaking Bad nod in Zootopia, Disney is doing a good job pandering to parents. The scene where Lumière shoots heroin in the upcoming Beauty and the Beast remake is probably a step too far, though.
(Via Entertainment Weekly)
