Trivia / The Jungle Book (2016)

• All-Star Cast:
  • Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Scarlett Johansson, Lupita Nyong'o, Giancarlo Esposito, Ralph Ineson, and Christopher Walken. Holy bananas!
  • A few foreign versions also bring out many famous people to dub, such as Brazil and India (the latter of whom has Irrfan Khan as Baloo, with Priyanka Chopra as Kaa in the Hindi dub).
• Awesome, Dear Boy: When asked why he took the role, Bill Murray's response was more or less, "When the Walt Disney Company phones you and asks if you want to play Baloo the bear, you don't say, 'I'll think about it'."
• Billing Displacement: Bill Murray (Baloo) is credited first on both the poster and the end credits, despite his character not even appearing until the end of the first act. Similarly, Scarlett Johansson (Kaa) and Christopher Walken (King Louie) were both credited before Giancarlo Esposito (Akela) in the second trailer, despite the former two being minor roles at best and the latter's death being a crucial plot-point in the story. This was somewhat fixed in future promotion for the film where Esposito is credited before Walken.
• Career Resurrection: This film helped writer Justin Marks recover after bombing with Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li.
• California Doubling: The end credits inform the audience that the movie was shot in Los Angeles.
• The Cast Showoff: Both Bill Murray and Christopher Walken get major singing time performing two of the franchise's most iconic songs, while Scarlett Johansson gets to sing "Trust In Me" as the main credits song as well.
• Dueling Works: With The Legend of Tarzan, which features another wild man orphan.
• Kids' Meal Toy: Subway sold a set of six digital watches.
• The Other Darrin: In the Japanese dub, and as a result of Shere Khan's original voice actor. Yuusuke Iseya, being arrested for drug use, he is replaced with Tsuyoshi Koyama in the home video dubs since 2021.
• Posthumous Credit: This was actor Garry Shandling's last film due to his death in March 2016. He voiced Ikki the kleptomaniac porcupine.
• Production Posse: Several of Favreau's previous collaborators, Scarlett Johansson, Garry Shandling and composer John Debney, appeared in and worked on the film. Though Favreau didn't direct, he and Ben Kingsley also worked together in Iron Man 3.
• Playing Against Type:
  • This is only the third time Idris Elba has played a villainous character on film, after 2014's No Good Deed and 2015's Beasts of No Nation. He would do this a fourth time in 2016 for Star Trek Beyond, which came out a few months later, meaning he may be moving into villain acting. Though his arguably most famous role was that of Stringer Bell in The Wire, so one could say he's just returning to his roots.
  • Scarlett Johansson, who typically plays Action Girl heroines and love interests, as the Affably Evil villain Kaa.
  • Víctor Trujillo, who is known for playing the Disney/Pixar Gentle Giant protagonists James P. Sullivan and Mr. Incredible. However, he plays the tyrannical and murderous Bhengal tiger Shere Khan, being his second Disney Big Bad after Dr. Facilier.
• Role Reprise: In the Japanese version, Shinichi Ishihara reprises King Louie from the Japanese version of The Jungle Book.
• So My Kids Can Watch: Idris Elba has stated that the best part of being in the film is that his children can hear their dad's voice in a remake of a classic children's film, despite the fact that it's coming out of walking Nightmare Fuel.
• What Could Have Been:
  • From the looks of it, this movie may at one time have considered averting Kaa's Adaptational Villainy, as concept art exists of Bagheera and Baloo apparently coming to her for help (which they do in the book).
  • Kaa was apparently going to have a much bigger role and would have been portrayed as far more Ambiguously Evil than in the final film. She would have rescued Mowgli from Shere Khan when the tiger chased him onto a waterfall, before showing him his past and trying to eat him herself. She would have then been defeated by Baloo, saving Mowgli.