The Jungle Book

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 The Jungle Book

     

     The main target demographic for this movie is mainly children, as it is based of a children’s story. However, it also appeals to older adults as it is an adaptation of an already existing story and a re make of the animated Jungle book movie, which adults may have seen as kids and are thus nostalgic. It appeals more towards a male demographic as the majority of the cast are male and thus would be more relatable to boys. However, there are also female roles such as Raksha and Kaa, who are important female characters in the story. Furthermore, the main story for the film is uni sex as it deals with universal ideas such as friendship, family, trust and love, which can relate to a very wide demographic.

      This movie has a strong and famous roster of celebrities, which would attract audience members due to their star power. Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Scarlett Johansson and Christopher Walken are all very well known and skilled actors who are recognised by a wide audience as they have all starred in numerous films. Furthermore, the director, John Favreau, is well known for directing action films such as the Iron man series and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) as well as family films such as Elf .(2003) Consequently, people will be confident in his directing abilities and thus may have confidence in the film being enjoyable.

      Disney has recently been creating live action remakes of previous films to both box office and critical success.  Films like Cinderella (2015), Maleficent (2014) and Pete’s Dragon (2016) have all shown that the live action adaptation of previous Disney films can result in a profit. The most successful one being Maleficent, with a box office revenue of $758.5 million and some average critical reviews. The Remake of Petes Dragon , while making the least with a box office of $143.7 million, had the greatest critical review with an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes. This mean that the remake was more well received than the original ,which had a score of 51%. Furthermore, due to it being a recent movement, there is still a mass audience appeal for these types of films, which the Jungle Book has capitalized on.

       The Jungle Book (2016) is a remake of both the animated Jungle Book (1967) and The Book of the same name ‘The Jungle Book’ (1894). Consequently, there is already a large fan base for the movie, which could result in an immediate profit as it will appeal to their love of either sources. On the contrary, this can also be considered a down side because if the movie fails to appeal to the fan base, then the movie would flop commercially as it would be immediately panned by both critics and audiences.

      One of the films main unique features is the dynamic mixture of both live action acting, which is performed by Neel Sethi as Mowgli, and 3-D GGI animation. This is a unique selling point as it allows for the animals to be appear realistic while still being easy to control. Furthermore, this allows for a distinctive take on a pre existing product, as a live action movie of the Jungle book may be more relatable to audiences. Bringing a sense of realism to a wild fantasy story.