Ben Child 

Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett added to cast for Jungle Book: Origins

Actors will voice Bagheera and Kaa in Andy Serkis's directorial debut, alongside Naomie Harris and Benedict Cumberbatch
  
  

Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett will both lend their voices to Andy Serkis's The Jungle Book: Orig
In the swing … Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett will both lend their voices to The Jungle Book: Origins. Photos: Kevin Winter/Getty Images; Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic Photograph: Kevin Winter/Getty Images; Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic

When Hollywood powerhouse Disney cast Bill Murray, Christopher Walken, Idris Elba and Ben Kingsley in its forthcoming remake of The Jungle Book, not to mention Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong'o and Avengers star Scarlett Johansson, the studio most likely expected the makers of a proposed rival version to blink and down tools. Now it appears the studio may have not quite realised who they were dealing with, after Britain's Andy Serkis named a cavalcade of A-list stars, including Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Naomie Harris and Benedict Cumberbatch, on his team for the upcoming The Jungle Book: Origins, which is being backed by rival firm Warner Bros.

Serkis, who is making his directing debut on the The Jungle Book: Origins after cutting his teeth as second unit director on Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, will voice Baloo the bear in the Rudyard Kipling adaptation, according to the Hollywood Reporter, with fellow Britons Peter Mullan and Eddie Marsan having also joined the cast. Disney's version is set for release in October 2015, while Serkis's will debut a year later on 21 October 2016.

Bale, who has not taken on a voice role since working on the English-language version of Studio Ghibli's Howl's Moving Castle in 2004, will portray Bagheera the panther for Warner Bros. Cumberbatch was previously announced as the villainous tiger Shere Khan, and Blanchett will voice the nefarious python Kaa. Harris, Marsan and Mullan are members of the wolf pack that adopts "mancub" Mowgli, with the boy himself played by the US child actor Rohan Chand.

Both new films appear to be based largely on the chapter Mowgli's Brothers in Kipling's 1894 collection, which has traditionally been used as the source material for a number of Hollywood adaptations over the years. Disney's version, from the Iron Man director, Jon Favreau, stars Murray as Baloo, Elba as Shere Khan, Walken as King Louie the ape, Kingsley as Bagheera, Johansson as Kaa, Nyong'o as the mother wolf Raksha and Breaking Bad's Giancarlo Esposito as wolf-pack leader Akela.

Serkis's version is expected to be a darker take, and will feature motion-capture CGI as well as live action. Favreau's film will also combine CGI and live action, with 10-year-old New Yorker Neel Sethi the only actor set to appear on screen as Mowgli.

 

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