Jungle bells
Mowgli remake is big Xmas film
THE BBC’s big Christmas Day movie will be the live action remake of The Jungle Book. The 2016 Disney film is based on the 1967 classic cartoon but is more faithful to Rudyard Kipling’s original stories. It introduced Neel Sethi as man-cub Mowgli, with Idris Elba as evil tiger Shere Khan, Bill Murray as friendly bear Baloo and Ben Kingsley as paternal panther Bagheera. A BBC insider said: “It’s going to be a big Christmas for Idris Elba on BBC1 – the new series of Luther is one of the season’s highlights, plus he voices Shere Khan in the Jungle Book. It might be frosty outside but we’re hoping to bring a bit of the jungle’s warmth into people’s living rooms this Christmas.”
There is an animal theme to lots of BBC1’s festive premieres – including Zootropolis, the story of a rabbit who becomes a tough policeman in the big city.
Also getting their first outing on network TV are Kung Fu Panda 3, The Good Dinosaur, about a diplodocus who helps to raise a boy, and Ant-Man, Marvel’s tale of a superhero who can shrink people.
BBC2 has a less family-friendly animal offering with The Revenant – starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a hunter mauled by a huge grizzly bear in 1820s Alaska.
Among the other films being shown for the first time are The BFG, Inside Out, Trolls and Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie.