Scarlett Johansson and Lupita Nyong’o are in talks to join Jon Favreau’s live-action Jungle Book film—not the one directed by Andy Serkis, but the one starring Idris Elba. Like Elba, Nyong’o and Johansson would lend their voices to the CGI portion of this live-action/CGI hybrid. Elba is set to voice the malevolent (and kind of sexy) tiger Shere Khan. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Johansson and Nyong’o would voice his sidekick and rival, respectively.
Johansson is in talks to play Kaa, the python with hypnotizing powers voiced by this guy in the 1967 Disney animated version. While Kaa was Mowgli’s friend and mentor in Rudyard Kipling’s original novel, the Disney version turned him into a comic relief villain. It’s unclear which version this film will go for—though it’s probably a safe bet the words “sultry” and “seductive” are being tossed around. Nyong’o, meanwhile, would voice Rakcha, the she-wolf who raises Mowgli and protects him from Shere Khan. Rakcha only appears briefly in the Disney version, but even if Disney doesn’t beef up the role, it can still put “starring Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o” on the poster.