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"I didn't want to make it a musical because I thought that
would change the whole tone of the film and I wanted to have it
feel like there were high stakes and high adventure here,"
Favreau said in an interview.
Favreau's "The Jungle Book," out in U.S. theaters on Friday,
revives author Rudyard Kipling's classic stories about Mowgli, a
young boy raised by wolves in the Indian jungle who befriends a
bear and battles a tiger.
The film centers on Mowgli's wolf family, which is attacked by
the evil tiger Shere Khan, who is out for revenge against
mankind and wants to kill Mowgli.
"I certainly didn't want it to be a G-rated kids movie," said
Favreau, who has also directed two "Iron Man" films.
The cast includes the voices of Bill Murray as singing bear
Baloo, Scarlett Johansson as the snake Kaa, Ben Kingsley as the
panther Bagheera, Lupita Nyong'o as wolf mother Raksha, Idris
Elba as Shere Khan, and newcomer Neel Sethi as Mowgli.
While the film is not a musical, it still features some fan
favorite songs, including Murray's rendition of "The Bare
Necessities" and Johansson's "Trust in Me," a collaboration with
R&B producer Mark Ronson.
Favreau said Sethi, who was 9 years old when filming, was
selected out of 2,000 children for his "confidence and
charisma."
"He had those qualities that you couldn't teach," Favreau said.
"As an experienced director now and a father, I was fairly
confident that I could teach a smart kid like Neel the nuts and
bolts of film acting."
(Writing by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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