Warner Bros. making its own The Jungle Book, with real-live jungle this time
Disney's The Jungle Book remains a family favorite among families who like to make the implied threat that, if you don't quiet down, you kids may find yourself getting all of your future life lessons from bears. But of course, many of Rudyard Kipling's themes about the struggles between man and nature and why you definitely shouldn't be an orphan ended up getting lost amid all the jaunty tunes and orangutan gags, so in the interest of bettering the future, Warner Bros. has hired Harry Potter scribe Steve Kloves to draft a more realistic live-action adaptation, one that will find its Mowgli trying to dodge a genuine ferocious tiger with the help of other animals who, were there not trainers present, would also want to kill him. Kloves' take will no doubt strike a balance somewhere between Disney's family-friendly 1967 version, the sinister tones of Kipling's original, and Disney's own 1994 attempt to make it a live-action adventure by essentially jettisoning everything but the character names—and presumably without any singing, unless the "Bare Necessities" of life include not being eaten by a bear.