20 More So-Called Happy Movie Endings That Absolutely Aren't
8. The Jungle Book
When Disney Animation adapted Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book into the iconic classic we all know and love, creative license was taken to aim the film more at children. It certainly isn't as dark as the source material could have allowed it to be.
Having said that, though it may seem a far happier story, there is still one largely distressing aspect that is hidden quite well, in that it is what would unequivocally have happened after the credits began to roll.
After Mowgli (Bruce Reitherman), the man-cub raised in the jungle by a combination of wolves, a panther, and a bear, escaped the clutches of the evil tiger, Shere Khan (George Sanders), he finally took his place back in the human village. A decision that was largely taken because he liked the look of one of the girls from the village, but in theory, it was where he belonged.
However, living in the jungle was literally all the young boy had ever known, and any acclimatisation to a human settlement would be next to impossible, filled with struggles and persecution, and likely a longing to return to the home he had known since his birth. Jon Favreau's 2016 live-action version of the story is far darker for the most part, but, with Mowgli (Neel Sethi) choosing to stay in the jungle, it ironically has a happier ending.