D23 News: Live Action "The Jungle Book" Update

Reporting belatedly, I'm afraid, but it can't be helped at the moment. Above is the new poster unveiled at D23 and while it is beautiful, my first impression was that Bagheera had a human face CGI'd onto his panther one. I've quickly discovered this is because of the lighting (you can see that it's not human at all in the close-up below) but now I can't un-see that...

Here's a round up of news tidbits regarding Jon Favreau's live action "The Jungle Book" remake for Disney, with the best news being that the reveals, though not so highly anticipated, brought a standing ovation and have created a strong expectation of goodness (classic with some darker Kipling resonances) for the movie being released next year. I'm so pleased to hear there will be much more of Kipling's original story vibes in there (though I would have been even more excited to hear that more storylines - or even characters like Kotik and Rikki Tikki Tavi - of Kipling's classic had made it in, but, baby steps are also good. You can read the original online HERE.)

As with other fan exclusives shown at D23 (at which all cell phones and cameras were confiscated on entering), the rest of us won't get to see what attendees did for some time yet but 2016 is rapidly drawing closer so I'm guessing the Christmas season promos will give us more to look at.

Here are the trailer details from The Grill:

Development art from Favreau's version

Director Jon Favreau unveiled the first trailer for Disney’s “The Jungle Book” and brought stars Lupita Nyong'o, Ben Kingsley and newcomer Neel Sethi onstage at Saturday’s D23 Fan Expo in Anaheim. 

Sethi plays the film’s young hero Mowgli, while Kingsley plays Bagheera the Panther and Nyong’o plays Raksha the Wolf. Favreau played up the eye-popping visual spectacle of the film, saying that “The best CGI is the CGI that disappears.” 

...The trailer opens with the smoky voice of Scarlett Johansson‘s Kaa the Python talking about the Red Flower, which brings “warmth, light and destruction.” 

Bagheera finds Mowgli and we’re told that “the jungle is no longer safe. I’ll return him to where he belongs.” 

We see Idris Elba‘s killer tiger Shere Khan stalking Mowgli through the outback in a thrilling sequence that ends with him jumping off a cliff, after which he’s discovered by Bill Murray‘s Baloo the Bear. Baloo tells Mowgli to “relax” and that “there’s no need to get worked up.” Then he sings the classic Disney song “Bare Necessities,” a song about “the good life,” though Mowgli confesses he doesn’t know what a song is. 

“Everyone’s got a song,” Baloo assures him. 

As the trailer nears its end, we see Shere Khan warning Mowgli that “if you come back, I’ll be waiting,” then the footage concludes with Christopher Walken‘s orangutan King Louie saying “I am the king!” — which brought the house down. 

... The footage, which was stunning and full of wonder, earned a standing ovation...

New star, Neel Sethi, handles his first public appearance very well.

And a very short video via Yahoo Movies is worth taking a peek at as Jon Favreau speaks about the classic comedic animation classic versus Kipling and his approach on trying to find the balance of both.

“A lot of liberty was taken in tone in the ’67 animated film, because the source material was much darker,” Favreau tells Yahoo Movies during a chat at D23. However, Favreau felt a deep connection to the original Disney movie, particularly regarding the music, the tone, and “the playfulness of the characters.” So in creating new version, Favreau drew on both the book and the cartoon. “I tried to pick out the aspects [of the 1967 movie] that I found most memorable and that I connected with the most, and made sure that we protected those as we explored the combination of those things,” (Favreau) explains.

Overall, this definitely sounds like it beats the first Disney live action remake by leaps and bounds, but will it be worth seeing in the theater? What do you think?

Bonus of the day:

Mondo posters is well known for their artistic alternative versions of movie posters and The Jungle Book has a couple done through them. The one below though is particularly lovely, hailing both classic book and future live action film beautifully. The artist is Brandon Holt.

Andy Serkis' "The Jungle Book: Origins" Underway

This version of The Jungle Book (for Warner Bros) will be using Kipling's writing as it's source whereas Disney's will be using their own movie. Apparently this will be completely CG so we should expect something completely different from the upcoming Disney reboot. And yes, production is confirmed as having officially started.

It gets even more confusing trying to keep the films separate in your head when you see the cast - both films of which are impressive and have lots of "Names". (Hm - I probably haven't made it easier using Disney images alongside the characters but hopefully you get the idea - these guys = NOT Disney.)

For this one we have the following line-up:

The film includes Benedict Cumberbatch as Shere Khan, Cate Blanchett as Kaa, Christian Bale as Bagheera, Naomie Harris as Nishi, Eddie Marsan as Vihaan, Peter Mullan as Akela, Tom Hollander as Tabaque, Jack Raynor as Mowgli's brother and Rohan Chand as Mowgli. Serkis, (Edit: who is directing) meanwhile, will (also) be the voice behind Baloo. (source)

Disney's is even more star-studded with:

..Ben Kingsley as Bagheera, Idris Elba as Shere Khan, Bill Murray as Baloo, Giancarlo Esposito as Akela, Lupita Nyong'O as Raksha, Scarlett Johansson as Kaa, and newcomer Neel Sethi as Mowgli.

Disney's The Jungle Book is due in theaters April 15, 2016 while Serkis' movie is scheduled for release on Oct. 6, 2017.

Perhaps the two movies really will be as radically different as the two Snow White movies were that were released at (pretty much) the same time. With over a year's difference in release time, I guess we'll see how it pans out.

"Storybook" Opens Tomorrow at Modern Eden Gallery

See the whole announcement HERE

While not limited to fairy tales, childhood classics definitely include them so this exhibit which reinterprets childhood favorite stories through an adult lens has more than a few works of interest for us fairy tale folk.

Since most of us won't be able to pop by San Francisco to head into the Modern Eden Gallery and check it out in person, here are some of the fairy tale specific works.

Jack and the Beanstalk by Chris Leib

Where the Wild Things Are by Leilani Bustamente

Thumbelina by Ciou

Alice and the Mushrooms by Brianna Angelakis

James and the Giant Peach by Richard J. Oliver

Beauty and the Beast by Jana Brike

Someone's Been Eating My Porridge (Goldilocks) by Edith LeBeau

Nightsong in the Jungle (The Jungle Book) by Helice Wen

Paper Bag Princess by Megz Majewski

Supper (LRRH - I think) by Erika Sanada

The details on the Goldilocks one are just stunning.

And, yes, I added James and the Giant Peach because it always reminds me of Peach Boy - Momotaro, though it really has very little in common with the folktale, and Where The Wild Things Are because oh-my-goodness-do-you-see-the-Japanese-monsters?! Straight out of Japanese fairy tales... Love it! And a bonus because I heart it:

Ferdinand the Bull by Isabel Samaras

Some surprise interpretations: Are you There God? It's Me Margaret (the scaly girl)
Winnie the Pooh - the bottom left with added Taoist symbology
I am super curious as to what the girl holding the invisible 'something' is, in the upper right corner by Chris Leib - ideas? (I found no clues from the artist anywhere.)

You can see more previews of the pieces at the various article sites below:
Platinum Cheese
Hi-Fructose
Warholian (puts some pieces next to books were inspired by - I would have bet the bunny above was from The Velveteen Rabbit - but I was wrong!)

Disney's Animated-to-Live-Action-Reboots-In-Progress Update (aka "Make It Stop!")

So... this news may be old in a few hours by the time you read it and there will be even more to add to the last but as of Thursday afternoon this is where things are at: we all know about Beauty and the Beast and since I posted the last casting update there have been a few additions. Let me just get those out of the way before I let you know what else is happening.

Beauty and the Beast
Confirmed theatrical release for March 17, 2017
(Wow - they're going to have to get a wriggle on if they're going to make that date!)

Belle - Emma Watson

Beast - Dan Stevens

Gaston - Luke Evans

Le Fou - Josh Gad

Maurice (Belle's father) - Kevin Kline

Mrs. Potts - Emma Thompson

Wardrobe - Audra McDonald

Lumiere - unknown

Cogsworth - unknown

Chip - unknown

Fifi - unknown

Asylum guy - unknown...

There's still lots of casting needed and production has got to get underway soon to allow for all the effects work that will be needed after filming. I wonder if they're using an existing castle or if they'll be constructing that from scratch too? It'd be awesome if they retained the various concept versions of Beast as the statues, like they did in the animated film.

And now on to the rest of the movies you can expect to be called fairy tales soon. We haven't had so many fantasy live action movies in production since possibly the 80's so I guess the trend was likely to return at some point. We just didn't expect them all to be done by Disney rebooting their own films!

If you follow OUABlog regularly, you also know about:

The Jungle Book which is busily in production.

The new film has cast Scarlett Johansson to voice Kaa, Christopher Walken to voice King Louie, Bill Murray to voice Baloo, Lupita Nyong'o to voice Rakcha, Ben Kingsley to voice Bagheera, and the adorable Neel Sethi as Mowgli, pictured below. (CinemaBlend)

And you also know about Dumbo (O.M.G.)

And you've probably heard about Mulan (which has been the big news this week - I think that could be good but they're going to have to work hard to keep it PG and still good). There is a chance this will become even more fairy tale - it'll be either that or go more historical, which I don't think is their demographic.

Fan made poster by Thomas Kurniawan

But did you know they're also redoing Pete's Dragon (which might actually be a good thing) with a writer known for his gritty film themes.

"...they will reinvent the core story of a venerable Disney family film. It will not be a musical and at this point Lowery is just engaged as writer. The original 1977Pete’s Dragon mixed an animated fire-breather with a live-action cast... with Sean Marshall playing the orphan boy who comes to a town with his magical dragon, his abusive adoptive parents in hot pursuit." (Deadline)

Principal photography has begun on the David Lawry (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) re-imagining of Disney’s 1977 classic Pete’s Dragon. Set for a 2016 release, the film has found it’s fantasy setting informer Middle Earth New Zealand, instead of just green screens (thank goodness).
The film stars newcomer Oakes Fegley as 10 year-old Pete who has a dragon friend named Elliott who can become invisible. Elliot will be brought to life by Weta Digital, the Wellington-based digital visual effects company that did the VFX for the Hobbit and Planet of the Apes will animate the dragon. So does this make Elliott the dragon Smaug’s distance cousin?
Bryce Dallas Howard is set to co-star as Grace, the park ranger who discovers Pete and his dragon. The story will deviate from the original family film but intends to keep it’s theme at the core. Robert Redford is also attached as Grace’s father. Their characters, while not the same as the original’s, will be very close as it seems that Grace is a variation of Helen Reddy’s role and Redford’s will be similar to Mickey Rooney’s. Wes Bentley and recently announced Karl Urban, will also be featured as brothers and Oona Laurence will play a young girl who befriends Pete. (SassyMamainLA -2-12-15)

And today's (Thursday) announcement: Winnie the Pooh. Live Action Winnie the Pooh.

The focus will be Christopher Robin as an adult, which brings him back to A.A. Milne’s famous bear and the Hundred Acre Wood. (Deadline)

Artist sadly unknown - I feel you bear!

I wouldn't be surprised to see Aladdin announced soon or perhaps Pocahontas (which Disney made into a fairy tale fantasy of their own).

Let's just get it over with and announce a live action Frozen already.

NOTE: The Little Mermaid live action film currently in development/production (it's all very secretive) is NOT Disney but will be based on the original Hans Christian Andersen story and directed by Sofia Coppola.

Aside: in response to the crazy trend, Saturday Night Live created a live action Bambi trailer with Dwayne johnson, which you can see HERE. (Adult content - not for kids.)

PS: I can't wait to see the live action Fantasia*. 

*I could not find the sarcastic font - if anyone can locate it, please let me know. I may have a lot of use for it in the coming months.

Fairy Tale & Folklore Oscar Watch 2015 (Summary)

The three biggies this year were all in the Best Animated Feature category:

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya - the oldest recorded Japanese fairy tale

Song of the Sea - selkie tale based on Celtic folklore

The Boxtrolls - Jungle Book related tale of a boy raised by 'monsters' finding his way (based on Here Be Monsters)

These three were up against industry giants Big Hero 6 (Disney) and How To Train Your Dragon 2 (Dreamworks).

_______________________________________________________________

BIG HERO 6 won for Best Animated Feature

________________________________________________________________

Nominated in other categories:

Into The Woods - Best Supporting Actress (Meryl Streep lost to Patricia Arquette for Boyhood)
                           - Best Production Design (lost to The Grand Budapest Hotel)
                           - Best Costume Design (lost to The Grand Budapest Hotel)

Maleficent          - Best Costume Design (lost to The Grand Budapest Hotel)

The Lego Movie - Best Song "Everything Is Awesome" (lost to Selma's "Glory")

It should also be noted, mythic storyteller and master animator Hayao Miyazaki, known for My Neighbor Totoro, The Tale Of Princess Mononoke and the Oscar winning Spirited Away, was also awarded an Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award (finally!).

I'm completely tickled that the audience were hanging onto their Lego Oscar statues as a tribute to The Lego Movie which deserved to be nominated but wasn't. (That's the Jack-like story, complete with giants of many kinds, that I think is more fairy tale than most people realize.)

Gabriel Pacheco's "The Jungle Book"

These illustrations for The Jungle Book are amazing.

They make me want to read Kipling's stories all over again. (I just came across these and had to share.)

I found a Spanish interview with Pacheco HERE on the challenge of creating new illustrations for The Jungle Book, and have used an auto-translator to assist in reposting some of it here:

The assignment was difficult. "A complicated challenge" qualifies illustrator Gabriel Pacheco... "And, well, you put Mowgli or Jungle Book in Google ... ". And search results overflowing with colorful images of the film adaptation of Disney. "But that was precisely what attracted me to illustrate a book with a great visual weight" explains via Skype from Buenos Aires.  

After the other, they began the problems . "The text they are so well made, has such workmanship, it is difficult to rework the characters because the text has solved. Worked great deal of time with this great conflict because the images I took out were superficial. They were not a reflection of the majesty of the text. "

After much rereading, came up with the solution: "I realized that I had not noticed the astonishment of the jungle Almost us goes unnoticed, but it is incredible that a child grows into it in the book, the weight of the jungle is.. amazing, so I decided to follow that path and work on the majesty of the jungle. I know it sounds simple, but it took three months of suffering come to that conclusion. I think it was nerves, anxiety draw a book with a very aesthetic view ... It was like drawing a Peter Pan "he explains.

You can read/see the first few pages of this edition of The Jungle Book HERE (it's in Spanish).

Gabriel Pacheco (Mexico, 1973), studied scenography at the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico.  

His visual work has earned numerous awards in Spain, Italy, Mexico and Japan. He has been part of the sample Illustrators of Children's Book Fair in Bologna.  

He has been nominated Alma award three times.

You can find many, many more of Pacheco's illustrations on his website HERE, including some fairy tales you might know well, such as Beauty and the Beast.

The Boxtrolls Get A 2nd Trailer (& We Get A Peek Behind the Scenes)

This very different Jungle Book-like story (based on the best selling children's book Here Be Monsters) looks adorable. Still! (I was already won over by the first trailer released earlier in the year. This just confirms it.)

A second trailer was released on Wednesday and completely confirms the awww-factor.

It opens with behind-the-scenes clips of the delicate and lengthy stop-motion filming and ends up with finished animation, complete with seriously a seriously cute kid-character who's dressed in a box like his carers/family.

Enjoy: 

Laika animation studio's The Boxrolls is scheduled for theatrical release on September 26th, 2014.

How to Read Fables, A Handy What-Next?! Guide (& A 99c Sale To Help Catch You Up)

If you're curious to catch up on Fables, you've picked a good time. Right now there's a sale until the end of September on most of the Fables comics (click on the image below the How to Read Fables Guide to be take to the sale site) and as a unrelated-yet-completely-relevant bonus, I've received permission to share a post with you on how to navigate this can-be-overwhelming-and-ever-expanding universe of Bill Willingham's.

But first, for those who need (another) reason to read Fables, consider this little nugget of information I pulled out of the first Fables (prose) novel, Peter & Max. Turns out Willingham not only went to Hamelin to research but ended up writing much of the novel IN RUDYARD KIPLING'S HOUSE, USING KIPLING"S LIBRARY! This insight into Willingham's approach actually explains a lot of why this series works as well as it does. Transcribed from the author's note at the end of Peter & Max - A Fables Novel by Bill Willingham. here's an excerpt from his thank you's:

"The first half of this book was written in Vermont, in the house once owned by Rudyard Kipling, painstakingly restored by the Heritage Foundation, using Kipling's original books, furniture and fixtures, which they were happily surprised to discover stored in an old barn on the property. Peter and Max were created in the same room, on the same desk in fact, that Kipling created Mowgli, the rest of the Jungle Book characters, Kim, the Captains Courageous, and many others. To say that it was an inspirational setting in which to begin a fantasy adventure story is to be guilty of criminal understatement. Thank you to the kind men and women of the Heritage Foundation, for opening the property to me and for your hard work in making my stay so comfortable, restful, and productive. Thank you, too, to the good ghost in that home for the use of your writing room and library, which always seemed to have just the right text on some obscure subject of medieval history, technology or nature, within arm's reach, whenever I needed it."

This is something I'm attempting to catch up on properly myself right now, having never read all of them in the correct order. With eleven years (and counting) of monthly comics to wade through, along with special issues, cross-overs and more, I must admit, without a guide I would feel quite lost. Although the Wikipedia page has a lot of great summary information it's still very daunting to wrap your brain around.

Thankfully, blogger/reader - and Fables enthusiast - Kailana (aka Kelly Rogers) put together a super-simple, easy to follow step-by-step guide to reading (and purchasing) the Fables issues in an order that not only makes chronological sense but makes for a fuller experience. And now I'm able to share it with you!

Without further ado (and with enormous thanks to Kailana for giving me permission to repost this) here is your handy "How-to-read Fables Guide":

So You Want to Read Fables...?

by Kailana of The Written World

Originally posted June 29, 2012

(with one update and additional notes & cover images inserted by FTNH)

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