Sooooo, The Jungle Book trailer is here. And it actually looks really good.
Although, honestly: this isn't a "live-action" film. It's a CGI film with a human co-star. (Not even Disney Realism could have a small child running around with real-life bears and tigers and panthers.)
Still, it looks like an interesting adaptation -- of the original animated film, of course. At the very end you hear a few strains of "The Bare Necessities" (I'm not sure if the music will carry over) and just before there you see what looks like a monkey (orangutan?) arm swiping out of a deserted temple which very strongly evokes "I Wanna Be Like You" of the original movie.
After all -- it's Disney. I don't expect a faithful retelling of Kipling's original story, although I will go re-read the story to see if Jon Favreau leans at all on the source material.
Final note: I think it's *very* interesting that the trailer features Scarlett Johansson's Kaa. It seems as if Kaa is still an antagonist here -- as compared to the snake's role as mentor much like Baloo and Bagheera in the original Kipling story -- but the change isn't that surprising given (1) the snake's symbolic history and (2) Disney's need for villainous henchmen. However, I still maintain that it's *very* interesting that in both the Disney adaptation and the forthcoming Warner Bros. one (The Jungle Book: Origins, boasting an equally impressive cast) Kaa is voiced by a woman. Don't know what to make of that yet.
