Still don’t want to see this movie… but Idris Elba. But live-action Disney remake. But Idris Elba.
Dammit.
According to Deadline, Elba is in “final negotiations” to provide the voice of eeeeevil tiger Shere Khan in director Jon Favreau‘s The Jungle Book. That means we won’t get to see his face, which is bad, but it means we might get a behind-the-scenes video of him in a tight jumpsuit crawling around doing motion capture, which is very very not bad. And also, don’t you want to just close your eyes and bathe in his voice, anyway?
The movie will be a mix of live action and VFX, which makes sense unless you want to have a tiger actually dragging a giant bear around on its tail. Elba, if this Shere Khan thing comes through, will be the first actor to be cast. The screenwriter is Justin Marks, whose only feature film credit to this point is the stunning cniematic achievement that is Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. Favreau, best known in geeky spheres as the director who made Iron Man awesome, has described his The Jungle Book as “a family brand with certain mythic elements.” Warner Bros. is also working on its own version of the story, potentially to be directed by Ron Horward.
Disney keeps truck-truck-trucking along with their live-action remakes/spinoffs, don’t they? There’s Maleficent, Cinderella, Cruella, Esmerelda, Peter Pan, Beauty and the Beast. Alice in Wonderland is already done, with a sequel on the way. A high school AU about villains’ kids. Once Upon a Time and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. I’m sure there are more, but thinking too much about this particular genre of blatant money grubbery makes my head hurt. With Elba onboard, The Jungle Book might be the film I’m most tempted to see, but never actually do.
(via: Deadline)
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