1967: Disney’s ‘Jungle Book’ Comes to Theaters

Walt Disney created his 19th animated feature film inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s book, The Jungle Book. Directed by the appropriately named Wolfgang Reitherman, the movie tells the story about Mowgli, an orphan boy who is raised in the jungle by wolves and then later by Bagheera a black panther and Baloo the bear. The movie featured the voices of Phil Harris, Sebastian Cabot, George Sanders, Louis Prima, Sterling Holloway, J. Pat O’Malley and Verna Felton. Mowgli was voiced by Bruce Reitherman, the director’s son. Disney passed away before the film made it to theaters on this day in 1967, but the film was a big success becoming the fourth highest-grossing movie of that year. The film was re-released in 1978, 1984 and 1990. In 1994, Disney came up with a live-action remake of the story as well as an animated sequel, The Jungle Book 2 in 2003. In 2016, Disney created yet another live-action version of the original film which was directed by Jon Favreau. A sequel to that production is currently in the works.