10 More Movie Remakes Better Than The Original
4. The Jungle Book (2016)
Almost exclusively, when Disney puts out a live-action remake of a classic movie it will do little more than strip the heart and the magic from the original, yet still bring in enough at the box office to keep the cycle repeating over and over. There is one exception to this, which is 2016's The Jungle Book.
The most obvious comparison between the new adaptation and the 1967 original effort is the aesthetic. The visual effects on display were nothing short of mind-boggling in 2016, without going so far as to rob the animals of all emotion and personality as they did three years later in The Lion King. These amazing visuals were matched by a star-studded cast, both helping the story take on a much darker tone.
The likes of Shere Khan (Idris Elba), Kaa (Scarlett Johansson), and even King Louie (Christopher Walken) were all genuinely terrifying, while the ending was far better than seeing Mowgli turn his back on the jungle and head to the man village.
It's difficult not to compare the success of The Jungle Book to that of The Lion King, but whereas the latter was essentially a beat-for-beat, almost scene-for-scene remake that had no real purpose in existing, the former expanded on the story and characters of the original to make something better.
It doesn't hurt Jon Favreau's effort at all that two years later, another "live-action" version, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle was released, and served little but to make The Jungle Book look even better.