Disney's The Jungle Book in Theaters NOW | Click here for Fun Facts and Activity Sheets

I LOVE that Disney has been re-making their classics as live action films (did you see Cinderella?? LOVE!) Bug is excited for this one! He has been counting down the days until today! Aw, who am I kidding? I’m excited too! And it is out in theaters EVERYWHERE NOW! Unfortunately, it’s going to be at least Tuesday before we can go see it. Bug was super bummed. I think he thought we were going on opening day!

Have you seen the trailer?

Here are some fun facts about the “behind the scenes” and the original film and book:

At full stretch, Baloo can reach nearly 15 feet high. The free-spirited bear is so heavy and sports so much fur, he took nearly five hours per frame to render.
Artists at WETA took some creative license when it came to King Louie,borrowing a legendary character—Gigantopithecus—and exaggerating his size. KingLouie stands 12 feet tall.
Mowgli sports a red loincloth in the film, but costume designer Laura Jean Shannon had her work cut out for her. “ Mowgli’s immersed in water and mud, he gets rained on, he runs,” says Shannon. “We even rigged a hidden safety harness into the costume because Mowgli hangs on tree limbs and cliffs. Each of the loincloths —we ended up with 16 or 17—had a very specific purpose.”
The team at Moving Picture Company (MPC) were responsible for animating more than 70 species, crafting 100 million leaves and simulating earth, fire and water. A team of more than 800 computer graphics artists spent more than a year on the project.
Artists digitally built most of the jungle environment that appears in the film, creating moss, bark, rock, water, grass, trees, leaves that were all inspired by their real-life counterparts in India. The virtual environment makes up 80 percent of the film frame 100 percent of the time.

BACK IN TIME

INSPIRED BY WALT – Disney’s 1967 animated film, “The Jungle Book,” was the last film that Walt Disney oversaw. He passed away in 1966, the year before the film’s

release.

Director Jon Favreau was inspired by more than the 1967 movie. “When I think about Disney’s legacy, I relate to Walt’s original dream,” he says. “Walt Disney’s

work has influenced my work. He was considered high tech for the time. He was the first person who locked soundtrack with picture, so the characters were perfectly choreographed to the musical score—something that absolutely blew people’s minds. Disney was on the cutting edge of technology.”

The iconic song “The Bare Necessities,” written by Terry Gilkyson, was nominated for an Academy Award® in 1968.

Composer John Debney, who wrote the score for the new, live-action film “The Jungle Book,” is the son of Louis Debney, who worked for Walt Disney. “When I was a youngster, they were making this incredible magical film called ‘The Jungle Book,’ and I was sort of a studio brat,” says Debney. “I got to know the young man Bruce Reitherman who played Mowgli. We would go on adventures around the world with his family.”