First Look: Disney’s CGI-Filled ‘Jungle Book’ Reboot

Rudyard Kipling’s man-cub Mowgli is a long, long way from Woolie Reitherman’s animated Disney classic in the new trailer for Disney’s The Jungle Book reboot.

Directed by Iron Man’s Jon Favreau, Disney’s dark live-action/CGI hybrid screens like a terrorized tale entirely drained of charm and humor, compared to Disney’s amiable 1967 feature. “Let’s have fun with it,” Walt Disney himself told co-writer Larry Clemmons about that film.

This one? No fun, so far.

Starring newcomer Neel Sethi as Mowgli, who doesn’t speak a word in Disney’s new trailer, The Jungle Book also stars Ben Kingsley as Bagheera and, curiously, Bill Murray as Baloo, whose deadpan humor is also missing. Don’t hold your breath waiting to hear Murray’s new version of “The Bare Necessities” in this trailer, because it never comes.

The same goes for Christopher Walken’s King Louie, who does not sing “I Wanna Be Like You” in the trailer — although there is plenty of Scarlett Johansson’s seductive, sinister snake Kaa to go around. Rounding out the cast, although you never hear them either, are Idris Elba as Mowgli’s tiger nemesis, Shere Khan, Lupita Nyong’o as Mowgli’s mother wolf, Raksha, and Giancarlo Esposito as the voice of alpha wolf, Akela.

What The Jungle Book’s reboot does provide is a menagerie of CGI wildlife and digital environments, which should screen well in 3D when Disney drops the film into theaters on April 15. It will be followed in October 2017 by Warner Bros.’ own all-star iteration, Jungle Book: Origins, directed by Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit veteran Andy Serkis, who also plays Baloo alongside decorated stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Shere Khan, Christian Bale as Bagheera, and Cate Blanchett as Kaa.