10-year-old Neel Sethi will play the part of Mowgli in Disney’s The Jungle Book for director Jon Favreau. As Mowgli, Neel will be the only actor onscreen in the film, which is a combination of live-action and animation already featuring the talents of Idris Elba as Shere Khan, Lupita Nyong’o as Rakcha, Scarlett Johansson as Kaa and Ben Kingsley as Bagheera. The film will be released in 3D on October 9, 2015.
Focus Features has acquired the Jesse Owens biopic Race for distribution. The film will feature Stephan James (Selma) in the lead role as the record-breaking winner of four Olympic gold medals in 1936 with Jason Sudeikis starring as Owens’ coach and mentor Larry Snyder and Jeremy Irons as Avery Brundage, the head of the American Olympic committee who fought to have the 1936 Olympics take place in Berlin. Stephen Hopkins (Predator 2, “House of Lies”) is directing with filming to take place in Montreal and on location at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.
Ron Howard is set to direct a documentary on The Beatles focusing on their journey from the early days of the Cavern Club in Liverpool and engagements in Hamburg to their last public concert in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, in 1966.
Christian Bale is in early talks to star as Travis McGee in Fox’s adaptation of The Deep Blue Goodbye for director James Mangold. The film is based on John D. MacDonald‘s 1964 book, the first in a series of 21 following McGee, a self-described “salvage consultant” who recovers others’ property for a fee and along the way gets into trouble fighting bad guys and wooing women. Dennis Lehane penned the script with Scott Frank working on the most recent draft. [Variety]
X-Men: First Class writers Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz are set to pen the script for the new Power Rangers movie with Roberto Orci stepping in as executive producer. The movie is said to be a “complete re-enivision” of the story of a group of high school kids who are infused with unique superpowers but must harness and use those powers as a team if they have any hope of saving the world. Oh boy. [THR]
