The Jungle Book: 1967 vs 2016

The Jungle Book: 1967 vs 2016

The first Jungle book was made in 1967, was the 19th Disney movie to be made. It was the last film that Walt Disney himself oversaw as he unfortunately died during its production. It is also the first disney animated feature where the opening credits say who voiced each role. The animation appears a bit dated, in large part because it appears to use the Xeroxing method, but that doesn't detract from the great story Disney had created, or the voice actors who added life to this movie.

The film was directed by Wolfgang Reitherman who also directed other disney greats such as Peter Pan, The Aristocats and One Hundred and One Dalmatians. He began working for Disney in 1933 and is considered one of Disney's "Nine Old Men".

The total budget for the film was $4,000,000. The film grossed $141,843,612 (USA). The film was shown in countries such as the USA, UK, Germany and Sweden. The film was most popular in the USA where the film was made. The film has a 7.6 IMDb rating. It is also estimated to be the 29th highest grossing film of all time in the United States.

The film is only 78 minutes long which may be surprising to a modern audience as we are now used to films being closer to 2 hours onwards. This may be partly to production costs and cinema running availability as the film would have only been shown in the cinemas at first as any people didn't have televisions yet so producing VCRs and DVDs was pointless.

The Jungle Book was released in the United States on VHS in 1991 as part of the Walt Disney Classics line and in the United Kingdom in 1993. Home video sales outside North America totaled 14.8 million units by 1994. The film was later released on DVD and blu-ray for further audience consumption. It is now a widely accessible film on platforms such as Netflix and Sky, it is also one of the many available films that can be accessed by illegal internet streaming.

In terms of marketing, the Jungle Book (1967) did not include much marketing other than movie posters and cinema signs due to the lack of internet and social media which we have nowadays. Yet as there was not much competition, especially in the animation industry, the film was very popular as it was for all the family to watch and Disney was already a very popular household name like it still is today.

Disney then decided to make a live action remake of the film in 2016. This was to make a more modern and updated version of the successful family favourite which targeted all audiences whether they were alive when the original film was made or not. It was directed by Jon Favreau who is known for producing the Iron Man film series. It included a child actor (Neel Sethi) to play Mowgli and included voice actors and a lot of green screen to create realistic animals and jungle settings.

The budget for the remake, however, was much more than the original at an amazing $175,000,000. On the opening weekend it made $103,261,464 (USA) and overall grossed $364,001,123 (USA) and $947,589,026 (worldwide) which is significantly more than the original. It has a 7.5 IMDb rating which is just under the original. It is hard to judge which film was more successful due to the difference in media in time, as it was hard to access the original in 1967 but it is much easier to access and market now.

Marketing for this film was much easier as there is now social media sites such as youtube, Facebook, twitter etc to promote the film and with help from the internet spreading the word is much easier in comparison to 1967. The production company held a fan event where sneak peeks were spread and some of the actors were introduced too, they also had many teaser trailers and trailers to get fans excited ready for the release of the film. The Disney parks also got involved in marketing the film as they had sand models of characters from the film in 'Animal Kingdom' (one of the Disney Theme Parks). This then got people to share pictures of this on social media sites which resulted in word-of-mouth marketing. The film also had it's own snapchat filter and website for fans to get involved in called 'lawofthejungle.com'.

For more techniques used for marketing of the film go to: http://thejohncarterfiles.com/2016/04/disneys-savvy-marketing-of-jungle-book-adds-to-the-mystery-of-its-inexplicably-lame-marketing-of-john-carter/

 The film features much more advanced technology such as CGI and special effects to make it look so real even though most of the film is just green screens, puppets and computers. Live action remakes are very popular among Disney at the moment due to the advances in media technology and popularity of nostalgia among their audience. Other films that have been remade into a live action version includes; Tarzan, Cinderella, Beauty and The Beast etc.