A few years ago two studios announced that they would be making new adaptations to Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. On one side Disney was making a live action remake of their animated classic, and on the other hand Warner Bros. wanted to make a darker story that is more reminiscent of Kipling’s original stories. The WB adaptation was announced first, but the Disney version came out faster and to much critical acclaim. The WB project was pushed back, worked on more, and was finally scheduled to premiere later this year. That is until a few days ago when it was announced that Netflix will now be the distributor of Mowgli, and that’s a disastrous idea.
Personally, I was very excited for the Andy Serkis directed Mowgli this year, because it’s a different take on the characters that everyone knows well, and they were doing something completely new with stop motion animation. In my mind it was the perfect blockbuster that would surprise everyone, and very possibly advance filmmaking with what they’re doing in effects. However, Warner Bros. selling the rights to Netflix is a massive statement that would hurt a film that already had doubters.
Since the release of the Disney adaptation a few years ago people have been asking why Warner Bros. were even still making this movie. For me it’s simple: It’s not the same story, and they’ve already sunk enough money into it that they couldn’t shove it under the rug. Which I am thankful for, since I seem to be in the minority when it comes to excitement for this film. Anyway, once the trailer was released, earlier this year, the debate on why we needed this movie was sparked again across the internet. Many comments about the trailer were either confused that this was a sequel or even a remake of Disney’s remake, criticizing the CGI as one does with blockbusters these days, or flat out denying this film any chance since they loved Disney’s remake so much. What’s more astonishing to me about this predicament is how many people don’t realize how often this happens.
With the amount of movies that the United States is pushing out each year alone there’s bound to be similar movies released closely together. Heck, there’s even a whole Wikipedia page on twin films (similar films released in the same year). In 1998 it was Antz/A Bug’s Life, and Deep Impact/Armageddon. In 1999/2000 you had The Legend of the Titanic/Titanic: The Legend Goes On, then in 2003/04 Finding Nemo/Shark Tale, 2005/06 Madagascar/The Wild, 2006 also had United 93/Flight 93, and even recent ones like Their Finest/Darkest Hour/Dunkirk last year, and yes even Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice/Captain America: Civil War from 2016. The point is this phenomenon happens all the time, and it’s nothing new, and yet the not yet released Mowgli is getting more attention and criticisms than what I’ve listed. Why?
I believe there are two major parts to this incarnation of “twin film” that speaks as to why audiences are unaccepting of this movie. The first is Disney. Every Disney animated movie when the studio was starting out, and especially when Walt Disney himself over saw it, was an adaptation. Mary Poppins, Lady and the Tramp, and The Jungle Book. A lot of kids grew up watching these films, and it’s great that these adaptations live on, but they’ve become vastly more popular than their originators. Who knew, and then read, Mary Poppins as a book series outside of England where it was first published, or tracked down Happy Dan, the Whistling Dog? If people read Rudyard Kipling’s original novel it wouldn’t be like the Disney version. These classic tales have transcended literature and have been embedded into the culture so deeply that they are now considered Disney stories.
The other part, I believe why people are not accepting of this adaptation, is that we are now at the peak in cinema culture where the audience doesn’t want dark and gritty reimaginings. The Dark Knight is a seminal turning point in film history, influencing style at the perfect moment in the culture. Studios looked to it and thought stories needed to be rooted in reality, characters needed an extra edge to them, and the cinematography needed to be taken down a few notches in the lighting. What was produced since then has been Alice in Wonderland, the DC cinematic universe, Dredd, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (and Solo), Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Fant4stic, Power Rangers, Oz: The Great and Powerful, and so on. Whether you like these movies or not is another story, but for now these films represent dreary tales with, similar coloring, in blockbusters that audiences have been hit with again and again for over a decade. Sometimes this style change worked, other times it shifted characters that we knew previously so much that they mangled said beloved characters in ways that were unacceptable. But we’re in a shift right now, and these types of blockbusters will be phasing out in the next few years I believe.
I say this because last year the top grossing films were Thor: Ragnarok, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-man: Homecoming, and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. These films in particular had a brighter color pallet to them, a lot of comedy, and audiences walked out of them having a good time. Films previously connected to a darker universe like Wonder Woman were given beams of light and color while taking steps into that enjoyable world, while films that were marketed with dark and gritty in mind like Star Wars: The Last Jedi turned out to be quite hilarious and optimistic. Now after Comic Con, where DC films ruled the trailer scene, we’re seeing people smack talk the gritty Titans show coming this fall and praising the family friendly Shazam! The period of dark and gritty is over, and while we undergo this change there will be a backlash to films that look dark and gritty, which unfortunately is what Mowgli has been labeled.
A film being dark and gritty isn’t a bad thing, but it’s gotten to the point now where people don’t want that. Even if the story is suited for it. And I believe those two points I went over are why there is a big wall of criticism between audiences and this unreleased movie, more so than usual when it comes to two similar movies being released close together. Now that I set the stage it’s finally time to dive into what this means with Netflix acquiring the rights to Mowgli…in Part 2.
Film Assist 
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