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              Favreau Spotlights Adventure in 'Jungle Book' Reboot

   by Reuters

   When director Jon Favreau took on the project to reboot Disney's
   beloved 1967 animated musical classic The Jungle Book, he not only
   wanted to film it as a live-action story, he also wanted to highlight
   the drama.

   "I didn't want to make it a musical because I thought that would change
   the whole tone of the film and I wanted to have it feel like there were
   high stakes and high adventure here," Favreau said.

   Favreau's The Jungle Book, out in U.S. theaters Friday, revives author
   Rudyard Kipling's classic stories about Mowgli, a young boy raised by
   wolves in the Indian jungle who befriends a bear and battles a tiger.

   The film centers on Mowgli's wolf family, which is attacked by the evil
   tiger Shere Khan, who is out for revenge against mankind and wants to
   kill Mowgli.

   "I certainly didn't want it to be a G-rated kids movie," said Favreau,
   who has also directed two Iron Man films.

   The cast includes the voices of Bill Murray as singing bear Baloo,
   Scarlett Johansson as the snake Kaa, Ben Kingsley as the panther
   Bagheera, Lupita Nyong'o as wolf mother Raksha, Idris Elba as Shere
   Khan, and newcomer Neel Sethi as Mowgli.

   While the film is not a musical, it still features some fan favorite
   songs, including Murray's rendition of "The Bare Necessities" and
   Johansson's "Trust in Me," a collaboration with R&B producer Mark
   Ronson.

   Favreau said Sethi, who was nine years old when filming, was selected
   out of 2,000 children for his "confidence and charisma."

   "He had those qualities that you couldn't teach," Favreau said. "As an
   experienced director now and a father, I was fairly confident that I
   could teach a smart kid like Neel the nuts and bolts of film acting."
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   ake/3286325.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/jon-favreau-adventure-jungle-book-remake/3286325.html