Jungle Book

The original 1967 Jungle Book 

  • It is regarded as Disney’s most troubled film and took 4 years to make which meant that Walt Disney died a year before its release.
  • Budget for the original was 4 million dollars but had a 378 million worldwide box office. 6.8 million of which is from Germany making it the highest grossing film in Germany. Made 100 times its budget back. 
  • The trailer for the movie was long with a lot of plot and presented itself as a marvel of animation and comedy, it was a breakthrough and wanted to show it off which is conventional of trailers at the time. 
  • The original script that was written by Bill Peet but was scrapped for being too dark and scary and Peet was fired in 1964. So some older Disney writers were hired with the instruction to not read the original book. 
  • 12 songs were written for the movie and out of all of them, one was kept which was the Bare Necessities which went on to win an award. 
  • They got musicians like Louis Prima to play King Louie and inspired the character as he was considered 'King Of The Swingers' who was a character created for the movie and Phil Harris who voiced Baloo and inspired a lot of his personality. The director's son was chosen to play Mowgli and a veteran Disney actor Sterling Holloway to play Kaa. 
  • Walt Disney wanted The Beatles to play the 4 vultures but couldn't due to what were apparently scheduling issues. 
  • The ending of the movie was a debate as Walt Disney wanted Mowgli to go back to the man village but the staff wanted him to stay in the jungle but after Walt Disney died they gave him the ending he wanted.
  •  Merch was more expensive to make in 1967 so less merchandise was made for the original. Posters were also expensive to distribute so one poster was made and shipped worldwide manually. Disney land/world uses mascots of Jungle Book characters from the original specifically which are still used to this day despite the remake coming out. 
  • Rated U with an added disclaimer on Disney Plus about bad cultural depictions. It would occasionally be shown in a double bill with Charlie the Lonesome Cougar. It was re-released in the US in 1978,1984 and 1990 and in Europe through as the 1980s to maximise box office takings. 
  • Virgin produced a video game for the Sega, Gameboy and PC in the early 90s but is still available to purchase through a Disney Classics Collection.

The 2016 remake of the Jungle Book

  • During the election which was a rough time for the world.
  • It was on a budget of 175 million dollars and made 966.6 million dollars worldwide and was the highest grossing remake of all time until Beauty And The Beast took its place the next year.
  • It made 5 times its budget back.
  • The 2016 trailer presented the movie as an action adventure with less plot and shows off the famous cast which is conventional of trailers of the time.
  • Jon Favreau made the 2016 after being chosen by Disney who he was already working with on other projects like Marvel and Star Wars. 
  • Blended the old story with new technology.
  • Why remake a classic? Nostalgia is a large part of this and allows the movie to recapture the old audience as well as get a new and younger one to give the movie a dual audience and a remake is a safe bet that doesn't require much risk or effort in a time of stability 
  • Most films in modern times are remakes, sequels or part of a bigger franchise. The movie was intended to have a PG13 rating and no music but after Jon Favreau joined he insisted that this be changed as he was a fan of the original. 
  • They used the same prop for the Jungle Book as the original for the ending of the film. They got stars from lots of different Disney franchises like Marvel and Star Wars to appeal to a wider audience. They even brought a character from the Kipling book who wasn't in the 1967 movie. 
  • They used a orchestra with lots of different global instruments to give the movie's music an international appeal and John Debney who made the soundtrack for the movie knew Walt Disney.
  • Cast was used in the advertising for the movie
  • Rates PG.
  • The posters were different internationally as they could be shipped easier worldwide than they could in 1967.
  • A tiger poster was used in China for cultural significance and to push the hero vs villain narrative. 
  • USA focuses on the ensemble cast and setting. Russia used most powerful character King Louis to appeal to Russia’s power and because of Christopher Walken is big in Russia.

The original book by Rudyard Kipling from 1894 and had been adapted many times before the 1967 movie. Powerful storytelling and memorable characters made it such a timeless story. Linked to the scouts with scout leaders using names of Jungle Book characters. English author who lived in India and had imperialist views which may have rubbed off on the book.

Warner Bros also tried to release a Jungle Book movie the same year as the remake called 'Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle' but ended up releasing it on Netflix to avoid competition which was a large disappointment for those involved. This means that Disney won the popularity contest for their Jungle Book that year

In 1961 Disney released ‘101 Dalmatian’s’ was a success at the box office but afterwards ‘The Sword In The Stone’ in 1963 was a disappointment so a lot was riding on the success of the Jungle Book to bring back Disney’s reputation as the leading company is was known to be. Disney had diversified its business with Disney World and live action but reeled it back with Jungle Book spending twice as long to make as ‘Sword In The Stone’ with 4 years spent instead of 2. The Disney Store was made in 1980s and was able to sell only Disney merchandise so it’s easier to sell the merch for the 2016 remake. Happy Meals were released for the Jungle Book 2 (sequel to original). D23 is a Disney fan club and convention where new content is released and influencers are sent to view new content which means that positive reviews were released a year early

Disney+

Generated $5.2 billion in 2021, an 85% increase year-on-year. Disney plus reached over 100 million subscribers in March 2021. App has been downloaded 200 million titles since launch.

Walt Disney invented some of the technology used on the film like the multi plane camera instead of having one flat background, Walt Disney split the background into different layers this made the perspective look more realistic.

Technology

Walt Disney invented some of the technology used on the film like the multi plane camera instead of having one flat background, Walt Disney split the background into different layers this made the perspective look more realistic. The 2016 Jungle Book used a lot updated technology with the use of:
  • CGI (computer generated imagery)
  • Mo-cap (motion capture)
  • Blue screen
  • Pre-vis (pre-visualisation)
The actor for Mowgli (Neel Sethi) was the only real thing in the movie. Originally Jon Favreau was going to film on location in India but Disney told him, he could make whatever he wants with special effects. They used lights on set to simulate how the lighting would be in the jungle. Due to the amount of CGI the movie could still be worked on after filming wrapped to change a lot of things. Motion capture was used on voice actors to give the characters the same characteristics. They had actual puppets to give the actor something to react to and make it more believable. The film was filmed in 3D at the same time. The crew were able to see what the scene would look like while they were filming due to pre-vis which meant a digital representation of what the environment would look like could be seen at the same time of filming. They brought technology back from the original to make the Disney Castle and opening sequence They also used the same prop of the book from the original to do the ending. Motion capture was used to capture the characteristic of the voice actors to make their characters look like the actors.
They used rotoscoping by filming footage then animating over it to create more realistic movements for animations.
Different ways to watch the 2016 Jungle Book:
  • 3D
  • IMAX
  • Blu-Ray
  • DVD 
2016 soundtrack was released on places like Spotify. After a while the DVD was vaulted which increases its value when being resold or re-released. A video game was made for the original in the 1990s and was released and still sold today on a Disney classics collection. Xerography was like early photocopying where they could copy what was on one cell and paste it onto another.
Films are ever evolving and go through
  1. production
  2. distribution
  3. exhibition
which have all gone through major changes
Soundstages are studios where audio can be recorded alongside images. Jon Favreau got turntables and treadmills on his soundstage for characters to move.
Photocopying or xenography was used in the original to copy an artists drawing that would be used multiple times
Pre-vis was used where Jon Favreau could see what shots would look like during filming before any actual effects were added
Blue screen used to 

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