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Jungle Book Take 2

Banking on the success and visibility of THE JUNGLE BOOK and its many reissues over the past 35 years, Walt Disney tests the market for a new storyline and new songs featuring many of the same characters from the classic. THE JUNGLE BOOK 2 debuts Friday, February 14 in the U.S. Directed by Steve Trenbirth, produced by Christopher Chase and Mary Thorne, the original screenplay by Karl Geurs, picks up where man-cub Mowgli is torn between two words. Mowgli, voiced by Haley Joel Osment, is living in the village among humans but decides to return to the jungle to see his buddy, Baloo the bear, voiced by John Goodman. Mowgli is followed by his quasi-girlfriend Shanti, voiced by Mae Whitman, and eventually most of the village as they encounter familiar and new animal characters including a predatory tiger, Shere Khan, voiced by Tony Jay. This production follows the new Disney plan of using its TV animation unit to make direct-to-video sequels with a theatrical launch. Crews were employed at Disney studios in Burbank, California and Sydney, Australia. Michael Peraza Jr. art directed the new film and Tom Rogers supervised storyboard. Joel McNeely provided original music with songs by Lorraine Feather and Paul Grabowsky. Recent Windsor McCay Annie Award winners Richard M. And Robert B. Sherman composed the music to the first feature which also featured Terry Gilkyson's Oscar-nominated tune, "Bare Necessities." Editors were Peter N. Lonsdale and Christopher Gee while supervising sound editor was Ronald Eng. Jamie Thomason did the voice casting and dialogue directing. Rounding out the cast are Phil Collins as Lucky the vulture, Jim Cummings as Col. Hathi/Kaa/M.C. Monkey, Connor Frank as Ranjan, John Rhys-Davies as Ranjan's father and Bob Joles as Bagheera.