Ben Kingsley To Voice Bagheera In New JUNGLE BOOK Feature

Academy Award-winning actor Ben Kingsley has been cast as the voice of Bagheera in Disney’s upcoming THE JUNGLE BOOK.

Directed by Jon Favreau from a script by Justin Marks, THE JUNGLE BOOK combines live action and animated filmmaking.

The film arrives in theaters in 3D on October 9, 2015.

From Wikipedia:

Inspired by the Rudyard Kipling’s book of the same name, it is the 19th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, it was the last to be produced by Walt Disney, who died during its production. The plot follows Mowgli, a feral child raised in the Indian jungle by wolves, as his friends Bagheera the panther and Baloo the bear try to convince him into leaving the jungle before the evil tiger Shere Khan arrives.

The early versions of both the screenplay and the soundtrack followed Kipling’s work more closely, with a dramatic, dark, and sinister tone which Disney did not want in his family film, leading to writer Bill Peet and composer Terry Gilkyson being replaced.

The casting employed famous actors and musicians Phil Harris, Sebastian Cabot, George Sanders and Louis Prima, as well as Disney regulars such as Sterling Holloway, J. Pat O’Malley and Verna Felton, and the director’s son, Bruce Reitherman, as Mowgli.

The Jungle Book was released on October 18, 1967 to positive reception, with much acclaim to its soundtrack, featuring five songs by the Sherman Brothers and one by Terry Gilkyson, “The Bare Necessities”.