Idris Elba to Play Shere Khan (The Tiger) in the Warner Bros.’ film “Jungle Book”

With the Oscar winning director Ron Howard at the helm of the project, Warner Bros studio is progressively moving forward very fast to present a new version of Disney’s classic film “The Jungle Book”. The casting process has been started, and the first great news in this regard is that famous actor Idris Elba has been announced to provide his voice for iconic character and villain of the film Shere Khan. Idris Elba has shown his acting skill in both Hollywood film and TV shows. The Pacific Rim star is said to be in final talks with the studio to take the role.

As Shere Khan, Idris will not perform as a live-action character, as The Jungle Book fans know that Shere Khan is a deadly Tiger of the jungle and battles against various other characters in an attempt to kill Mowgli. Elba will just lend his voice for the Tiger character named Shere Khan who would want nothing more than to get a bite out of Mowgli. Idris Elba definitely has a very macho or manly voice.

He will prove to be a great voice actor, but I speculate whether or not motion capture technique will be used owing to the VFX team that is hired for the project. According to several media reports, Oscar winner Rob Legato, who earlier worked on special effects of mega budget films like Avatar, Hugo and Titanic, is managing the visual effects for the Jungle Book, which will most probably be used to generate all of the animals.

Warner Bros. is really moving very fast with this project as compared to its all other projects. A few weeks ago, it was announced that Ron Howard will direct the film after Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu turned down the offer to helm the project due to busy schedule. It seems that Warner Bros. is building things silently without creating any media fuss about it. The studio and production team are still searching for a perfect actor who will be the best fit to play the role of Mowgli, as well as hunt for the voice actors for the other characters of the Jungle Book including 'Baloo' the Bear, and 'Bagheera' the Panther.

With a promising director Ron Howard, who always lives up to the expectations of the fans, at the helm of this project, we can be sure that this upcoming film will live up to the legacy of the 60s classic Disney film.

What are your views about it?