Wednesday, November 06, 2013

The Fourth Version

Or rather, Diz Co.'s Version #4*.

Disney is in negotiations with Jon Favreau to helm The Jungle Book, a new adaptation of the 1894 Rudyard Kipling novel that is a priority project for the studio. Justin Marks, scripter of The Raven, will turn in a draft shortly, and the studio hopes to get into production next year. ...

Rudyard Kipling's book has never been slavishly followed because, like a lot of Kipling's work, it's filled with riveting characters and short, punchy tales, but little in the way of a cohesive plot.

The first significant version of JB was Zoltan Korda's version from 1942. It starred Sabu (later seen in a number of Universal Technicolor extravaganzas and Disney's A Tiger Walks) and John Qualen, one of the actors belonging to director John Ford's stock company.

If the new version gets made, it will be the fourth theatrical release of Mr. Kipling's work by the Mouse House.

* This latest iteration follows "Jungle Book" (1967) live-action "Jungle Book" (1994), and "Jungle Book 2" (2003) ...

1 comments:

Pete Emslie said...

Dumb idea. But then, this is Bob Iger's joint now, so I'm not surprised.

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