John Debney is attached to score Walt Disney Pictures’ upcoming film adaptation of The Jungle Book. The movie is directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Cowboys & Aliens) and stars Neel Sethi as Mowgli. The film’s voice talent includes Bill Murray as Baloo, Scarlett Johansson as Kaa, Ben Kingsley as Bagheera, Lupita Nyong’o as Raksha and Christopher Walken as King Louie. The project is a combination of live-action and animation and tells the classic story of an orphan boy who is raised in the Jungle with the help of a pack of wolves, a bear and a black panther. Justin Marks has written the screenplay. Debney has previously collaborated with Favreau on such films as Elf, Iron Man 2 and Zathura. The Jungle Book is set to be released on October 9, 2015 by Walt Disney Pictures.
Debney’s other upcoming projects include the History Channel’s two-part mini-series Houdini starring Adrien Brody, which is set to premiere on September 1. The composer’s other upcoming projects include Stonehearst Asylum (previously entitled Eliza Graves) starring Kate Beckinsale, Jim Sturgess, Ben Kingsley, Brendan Gleeson and Michael Caine, set to be released on October 24, as well as the animated feature The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water. Check out trailers for all projects below.
Debney also has Tom McCarthy’s The Cobbler starring Adam Sandler and Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Broken Horses coming up.
NO HANS ZIMMER?!
Thank God.
Hahaha, just kidding. Debney is an extremely talented composer, but he wasted most of his career with projects below him, like silly comedies. This Disney movie is his chance to deliver a really great score.