Film: Media Industries

Students are required to KNOW

the relationship between the production of a media text and how it is consumed by an audience.
You will explore a number of factors, including the historical and social cultural contexts of media products.
You will be introduced to key media terminology in relation to media production, ownership, distribution and marketing, digital technology and media audiences.
You will need to consider how past and present media practices are being transformed in an online age – how they are evolving and growing from traditional media practices. It begins with a case study on film, and then looks at radio and video games

The Jungle Book (1967 and 2016)

The Jungle Book (2016) has taken over 1 billion US dollars already at the cinema box office alone (and will generate more income as a DVD/Blu-ray disc and online). The film has a clear pattern of production, distribution and circulation that can be easily distinguished and is a film production from a major studio.

The Jungle Book (1967) is a historically significant media product and film text. The 1967 film is currently one of the most successful films of all time (it has taken over 100 billion US dollars) and followed a traditional pattern of production, distribution and circulation, although it enjoyed a ‘second life’ on video and DVD.

The Jungle Book (1967) is over 50 years old.
It is a very successful film and to date has grossed over $100 billion.
The Jungle Book was made by Disney Studios under the production company of Walt Disney Productions, a famous film studio in Hollywood that specialises in animated cartoons.
The film is often described as an animated musical comedy.
Other Disney texts from the same director, Wolfgang Reitherman, include One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) and The Sword in the Stone (1963).

The Jungle Book (1967)

The production of The Jungle Book (1967) involved a specialised and institutionalised method of media production, which for Disney is animation and is still crucial to the studio’s brand identity to this day.

The Jungle Book (1967) was produced by Walt Disney Studios and cost $4 million to make.
Walt Disney Studios is an American film studio based in Hollywood; between 1937 and 2016 it produced 56 animation films.
During this long history, Walt Disney Studios has been considered the best animation company in film production, and as recently as 2007 Walt Disney Animation Studios purchased Pixar Animation Studios.
This is a typical characteristic of a media conglomerate that has enough money and power to take over its competitors.
The Jungle Book (1967) is a prime example of such high-cost and top-quality animation

Historical context

The 1967 film is important to Disney Studios’ history – it is a magical landmark film that is among the best ever written for Disney and includes the Oscar-nominated songs ‘The Bare Necessities’ and ‘I Wanna Be Like You’.
The original soundtrack for The Jungle Book was also the first to achieve gold disc status in the USA for an animated feature film.
The Jungle Book (1967) itself is premised on an imaginative interpretation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, and the film credits a notable cast and production team that had been in place and had worked together in the studio – at this time still a family-run business – for a number of years.
The racialized representations of the 1967 film were not repeated in the 2016 version and perhaps reflect the institutionalised racism of America at the time where races were segregated

Economic contexts

By the time The Jungle Book was released Disney was already a successful film company, and the Disney Corporation was diversifying into theme parks (Disneyland), television series and merchandising deals. These were set up through its distribution arm, Buena Vista, in 1953. In part this was Disney’s reaction to the baby boom of the 1950s, and the expansion of its business interests in home entertainment focused on its television series.

The Jungle Book was released in October 1967 and grossed nearly $24 million on its first worldwide release.
The film was produced on a budget of $4 million and was the fourth highest grossing movie in 1967.
The Jungle Book was re-released in cinemas in the USA in 1978, 1984 and 1990.
It enjoyed European screenings throughout the 1980s, with a particularly strong German market.
The film has been released on a number of occasions to home entertainment markets.

The success of the film exemplifies how Hollywood conquers not only the home market, but also the global market. This is typical of the Disney brand and the quality of films that the company makes. The film also offers an example of media translation as it has benefited from evolving digital technologies and developments in home entertainment. The following timeline of its re-releases illustrates how historically Disney has embraced technological change to ‘exploit’ its product.

The Jungle Book was released in the United States in 1967.
In 1991, it was released as part of the Walt Disney Classics collection – illustrating how a media institution benefits from a back catalogue of movies that can be resold to younger generations. Three years later the home video sales totalled 14.8 million copies. The aim was to price the Disney Classics movies so that every family could afford to buy a copy.
A limited issue DVD was released in 1999 by Buena Vista Home Entertainment and there was a subsequent release as a two-disc DVD in 2007, marketed as a platinum edition to celebrate the film’s 40th anniversary.
In 2010 the film was released as a Blu-ray/DVD/digital copy combo-pack.

Disney gains longevity of sales. Each time it translates an animation classic via the latest media technology to make it available in a new format, the company captures the next generation who then commit to the brand loyalty.

Most recently, The Jungle Book (1967) has been released as a digital download via iTunes and is available on streaming services such as Amazon Video and Google Play – demonstrating the ‘legs’ of a movie made over 50 years ago and the success of Disney as a media institution in reselling the brand over and over again to different generations.

The total gross for the movie is $141 million in the USA and $205 million worldwide.

Ownership, distribution and control Making money out of producing films to be shown at the cinema is very difficult. This is because there are so many other media platforms the film can be sold by, for example, through merchandising.

Media companies practise vertical integration in order to control and maximise efficiency of the supply and distribution of the product – not just as films, but also as television, soundtracks and merchandise and, in Disney’s case, theme parks as well. This illustrates how media synergy can support the continuing presence of a film and so promote horizontal integration across media and business interests, for example Disney film characters being evident in its theme parks and Disney Stores. The Jungle Book is an example of how important synergy and merchandising is to a media conglomerate as it commodifies a successful media text.

Ownership, distribution and control

Making money out of producing films to be shown at the cinema is very difficult. This is because there are so many other media platforms the film can be sold by, for example, through merchandising.

for example Disney film characters being evident in its theme parks and Disney Stores. The Jungle Book is an example of how important synergy and merchandising is to a media conglomerate as it commodifies a successful media text.
Film producers take a percentage of merchandising revenue, often through licensing deals .
movie property owners like Disney probably receive at least ten per cent of the wholesale price as their share of the profits.

The film industry is an expensive business that relies on economies of scale to make money. If a company owns and controls a wide range of other companies it is a conglomerate. This helps the company to make more money and also keep ahead of its competitors. Disney is a highly successful conglomerate.

The Disney model is an example of how a media conglomerate operates:

Disney was an early master of synergy, persuading companies to tie in with its films’ release, running a character merchandising department.
The producer of animated films used the popularity of his famous cartoon characters for a weekly show on ABC that served as an advertisement for his theme park.
In turn, visiting Disneyland helped secure customers’ brand loyalty to the Disney trademark for the future.
This strategy of cross-promotion. has become a basis for the Walt Disney Company’s rapid growth

Vertical integration: When a media company owns different businesses in the same chain of production and distribution. Media synergy Using a single-sourced idea to create multiple selling points and products.

Horizontal integration: When a media company creates a chain of goods or services across different divisions, often subsidiaries of the same company. Licensing deal A legal contract between two parties, which grants a deal over a brand or product

David Hesmondhalgh's theory

Cultural industries and online media - the idea that the radical potential of the internet has been contained to some extent by its partial incorporation into a large, profit-orientated set of cultural industries.

Hesmondhalgh discusses the way the cultural industries operate and explores their effect on audiences: “Of one thing there can be no doubt: the media do have influence.”He points out that societies with profitable cultural industries (e.g. USA, UK) tend to be dominated by large companies, have minimal government regulation and significant inequality between rich and poor.

Hesmondhalgh acknowledges that media companies are operating a risky business. There is no guarantee a creative product will be a success.They offset this risk both creatively and through business structure. In terms of media products, they use stars, sequels and well-known genres. In terms of business, they use vertical integration and diversification to spread their risk and maximise profit.

Hesmondhalgh discusses commodification in the cultural industries (turning everything into something that can be bought or sold). He suggests this creates problems on both the consumption and production side. For the production side, he points to certain areas of the cultural industries where people are not fairly rewarded.

Hesmondhalgh has explored whether the cultural industries truly reflect the diversity of people and society. Hesmondhalgh references Mosco (1996): “There is a difference between multiplicity – a large number of voices – and diversity – whether or not these voices are actually offering different things from each other.”

The Jungle Book (2016)

The Jungle Book (2016) The Jungle Book was produced by Walt Disney Pictures and directed by Jon Favreau,
Jon Favreau had previously produced Iron Man and Iron Man 2 under his production company.
The Jungle Book (2016) is a fantasy adventure movie with a darker and more sinister interpretation of Kipling’s stories
The 2016 version is a shift away from the light-hearted, toe-tapping and joyful original 1967 animation.
Disney’s rationale for changing the narrative was to attract a wider audience through producing an immersive experience in which the characters were no longer playful/funny but believable.
This was largely achieved through use of CGI animation

Production

Given the estimated production budget of $175 million, above-the-line costs were high in relation to creative talent such as actors, directors, writers and producers. The casting and use of more than 30 stars for the voiceovers, including film actors such as Scarlett Johansson and Ben Kingsley, was just as important as in the 1967 film.

The casting of established actors helped to attract a more adult audience who might want to watch the film because of “Celebrity Appeal”.

The contemporary version is well thought out and was an expensive movie to produce.
Disney was able to rely on a tried and tested formula with The Jungle Book , targeting a global market and family audiences with a successful brand.
Disney chose to “reboot” a 50-year-old film in a CGI format, as it represented a product that people were familiar with.
Previously Disney were unsuccessful in CGI blockbuster films such as John Carter (2012) and The Lone Ranger (2013)).
The selection of THE JUNGLEBOOK MADE ECONOMIC SENSE AS IT HAD AN ESTABLISHED AUDIENCE AND THEREFORE REDUCED THE RISK OF FAILURE AT THE BOX OFFICE. (This links to Hesmondalgh’s theory.
Disney wanted to create a visual spectacle that could easily translate across multiple territories or overseas/global markets. ( this is reflected in the global actors used)
Note Disney has followed up on the use of archived films through CGI reboots of “Beauty and The Beast”, Dumbo and Cinderella

The Jungle Book (2016) can be described as a live action/CGI film as it combines live action and animated animals interacting on screen. The animals and landscapes were created on computer by the British digital effects house MPC. The Jungle Book (2016) was: Planned by Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn as one of a series of remakes of their classic properties: ‘Hollywood makes lots of films for kids, but the Disney reboots may be one of the few safe bets. They revive classic characters for a new generation of kids, and their already smitten parents may be especially willing to shell out for related merchandise.’

Within Hollywood there is the emphasis on spectacle, which tends to privilege some genres over others, for example action, sci-fi and fantasy. These types of films dominate studio budgets, marketing and distribution spends, and Disney is no different – especially when it has a history of being an early adopter of new media technologies.

Modern audiences increasingly engage with CGI content which has made significant advancements in the past decade wrt to films such as Avengers, transformers and the Lord of the rings.

The time was right in development of this film property to combine the animation trademark qualities of Disney with the latest digital technology (photorealistic rendering, computer-generated technology and motion capture). The proliferation of digital technology in film has been driving film production in recent years.

As lead VFX studio on Disney’s The Jungle Book, MPC artists built a complex photo-real world creating The Jungle Book’s stunning CG environments and bringing the film’s iconic animal characters to life. Best friend Baloo the bear, Mowgli’s wolf family, Bagheera the panther, Kaa the python, and the villainous tiger Shere Khan would be built bone, skin, hair and whisker. 54 species of animals and 224 unique animals were created and new computer programs were made to better simulate muscles, skin and fur.

Technology

Disney’s The Jungle Book puts viewers alongside the film’s central character Mowgli in a photo-real computer generated world. Part live action film, part animated feature, part virtual experience, audiences of all ages will feel what it’s like to walk and talk with animals in their jungle home.

The newest film making technologies from virtual cameras and computer simulations to digital characters were used to create a seamless experience for audiences, without a hint the film was shot entirely in Los Angeles on sound stages.

Director Jon Favreau, Production VFX Supervisor Rob Legato and The Jungle Book’s production team made the bold decision to film the movie without any outdoor locations. How were they to shoot a single actor on blue screen, and create a world around him that is so realistic that audiences would believe took place in the jungles of India? A new approach to film making would be required, harnessing the latest technology and creative talent. In the end a team of more than 800 computer graphics artists would work for over a year animating over 54 species of animal, crafting full CG environments, and simulating earth, fire and water.

Before a single frame was shot, each scene was meticulously prepared, camera moves designed, animal co-stars roughly animated, detailed lighting plans made, and models of terrain and trees arranged into technical plans. MPC (The Moving Picture Company) were involved from the film’s very beginnings. A team of senior artists, led by MPC VFX Supervisor Adam Valdez and VFX Producer Philip Greenlow, travelled from London to Los Angeles to help visualise and plan the script and storyboard development and guide the filming on set. MPC’s visual effects team developed characters, worked out just how they would talk, and began crafting the movies full CG environments.

MPC brought the film’s most iconic characters to life. Best friend Baloo the bear, Mowgli’s wolf family, Bagheera the panther, Kaa the python, and the villainous tiger Shere Khan would be built bone, skin, hair and whisker. 54 species of animals and 224 unique animals were created and new computer programs were made to better simulate muscles, skin and fur. For each shot and each movement, animation artists followed extensive research in animal behaviour, so that even the subtlest behavioural traits would translate into performances the audience would recognise from the animal kingdom. MPC’s Animators used finely tuned animation tools to hand animate the jungle animals, from the kings of the jungle to the smallest of insects.

To put the jungle in The Jungle Book, MPC began by creating a wide variety of plants, trees, vines and rocks. Artists at the studio’s Bangalore studio took more than 100,000 photographs of real locations in the Indian jungle, and built a massive library of resource material that was then recreated down to the finest of detail. The result is moss, bark, rock and water that the audience feels they can reach out and touch. Each scene is handcrafted plant by plant, detailed down to thousands of scattered broken leaves, and vines that grow across the landscape. It’s also a world of rushing rivers, mudslides and grasses blowing in the wind. Contributing to 80% of the frame 100% of the time, the jungle itself is the single biggest creation in the movie.

MPC’s Visual Effects Supervisor Adam Valdez explains, “Jon talked about how our jungle was the stage for primal mythology. It’s not a fairy tale. But watching the final scenes is magical in a way. He also saw the opportunity to give audiences the wish fulfilment of living with animals, and for that the world and characters needed to pass the test of unblinking believability. We had to create an experience that was charming like the classic animated film, but intense when the story needed it.”

Principal photography took place entirely on sound stages at L.A. Center Studios in downtown Los Angeles.The animal characters were created entirely in computer animation, with the assistance of footage of real animal movement, the actors recording their lines, and performance capture for reference. The production team underwent a thorough process to realistically convey the animals' speaking, while still making them perceptually believable to the audience. Favreau researched earlier films featuring anthropomorphic animals, including Walt Disney's animated features, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bambi, as well as modern films such as Babe and adopted certain techniques from those films into The Jungle Book. Nearly 70 separate species of animals native to India are featured in the film, with several species being portrayed as "150% larger" than their actual counterparts.

Jim Henson's Creature Shop was brought in to provide animal puppet figures for Sethi to act against, although none appear in the finished film. The animal puppets were performed by Artie Esposito, Sean Johnson, Allan Trautman, and April Warren. Favreau utilized motion capture with certain actors, expressing a desire to avoid overusing the technology in order to prevent evoking an uncanny valley effect. For instance, Bill Murray's lifted eyebrow was incorporated into Baloo's facial gestures.

The Moving Picture Company (MPC) and Weta Digital created the film's visual effects. MPC developed new software for animating muscular structure in the animals. Around 1,000 remote jungle locations in India were photographed and used as a reference in post-production. Weta was responsible for animating the King Louie sequence, with visual effects supervisor Keith Miller adding that, "It was important for Jon to see Christopher Walken in the creature. So we took some of the distinctive Walken facial features—iconic lines, wrinkles and folds—and integrated them into the animated character". Favreau expressed desire in wanting the film's 3D shots to imbue the abilities of the multiplane camera system utilized in Disney's earlier animated films. At Favreau's behest, the idea was extended into the film's version of the Walt Disney Pictures opening production logo, which was recreated as "a hand-painted, cel-animated multi-plane logo" in homage to the animated films of that era, also incorporating the word "Presents" in the same font as the 1967 film's opening credits. The film's ending also features the original physical book that opened the 1967 film.

Distribution

After three years in the making from concept to product, The Jungle Book (2016) was released from April to July 2016 across 70 different national territories.
The highly competitive business of launching and sustaining a film to the largest appropriate audience was timed by Disney for a summer film release, traditionally seen as coinciding with events for school-age children and family time.
The Jungle Book was released in North America in Disney Digital 3-D.
The film was also released in RealD 3D, IMAX and IMAX 3D, with a worldwide opening figure for IMAX of $20.4 million from 901 IMAX screens, remarkable for a PG-rated film.
the film grossed a total of $39 million in IMAX screenings worldwide. The film became a critical and commercial success, grossing over $966 million
Films usually open in cinemas first. This gives a product commercial value and creates further demand for viewing – especially in high-end technology formats.
Following a big-screen run of approximately 16 weeks, films are released on a flexible timescale through other formats: home entertainment release, such as DVD, 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray and digital HD, PPV or subscription television, streaming and broadcast free-to-air TV as downloadable movies on Disney Anywhere, iTunes, Google Play and Amazon

Marketing is a part of distribution, Disney used he following strategy to market the JB.

Different elements of film marketing that attract audience attention for the film include:

word of mouth – social recommendation is the most effective trigger for cinema attendance and can give a film ‘legs’, so interest remains high for weeks after release
posters – choosing and using an image to distil the essence of a film
trailers – the most cost-effective form of promotion, normally shown prior to another film with a similar target audience
social media messages – for example The Jungle Book 2016 Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Essay

Much has been written about the power and influence of the Disney corporation. With enterprises in film, video, theme parks, cable and network television, cruise ships, toys, clothing, and other consumer products, Disney leads in the construction and promotion of U. S. popular culture. Dominating market power in entertainment mitigated by avuncular representation adheres to Disney in large part due to its primary production art form: the animated feature.

Animation is central to Disney’s economic strength and cultural influence. In the last ten years, Disney has sold more than $2 billion in toys—toys based on characters from animated films and cartoons. Pegged to animated characters from Mickey to Pocahontas, Disney theme parks have more visitors yearly than 54 national parks combined. Using profits from its animated feature films, Disney acquired ABC, AM radio stations, and cable holdings such as ESPN and A&E. Disney cable cartoon channels air animated spin-offs such as "Aladdin," "Timon and Pumba," and the "Jungle Cubs." And although Disney has moved beyond animation with Miramax and Touchstone those efforts pale in comparison to the economic success of cartoon features: seven of the top ten selling videos in the world are Disney animations, including Aladdin (1992), Tarzan (1999), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and Pocahontas (1995). The Lion King (1994) alone has grossed over $1 billion, including merchandising and video sales.

Beyond its mass popularity and market dominance in animated features, Disney’s leading position is verified by the efforts at animation by recent competitors: Fox studios and Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks now emulate the artistic and promotional model. In terms of total revenues and in terms of international recognition of its brand, animation is why Disney has been and remains a leader in creating and marketing entertainment in both domestic and export markets.

Disney is a multi-media conglomerate that has been around since the 1920’s and has expanded to become the well known industry it is today. It is vertically integrated, having control of all the processes of making and showing it’s movies. It also owns it’s own companies to promote any of it’s creations – some even established by Disney itself, such as Disney Channel, Disney Media Networks and even theme parks and shops.

In the marketing process of films, it is key to get in as much products, news updates and such as possible, so that the target audience is hooked and anticipates the film. Technological convergence has made marketing films easier, as people can now get updates on their phones, x-boxes and other devices so it’s faster and easier for companies to promote their films. John Carter’s downfall rested heavily on it’s poor marketing campaign. The film spent $100 million on marketing, creating trailers, a soundtrack, posters and a small amount of merchandise surrounding the movie. However, the quality of these items were poor. This may have come down to the person who had been in charge of the films marketing suddenly leaving, but that doesn’t make up for the lack of backstory in the trailers, the little amount of cross-media advertising, the awful, bland posters and hardly any promotion of the film digitally. This contrasts to ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides who’s film wasn’t the best, but was marketed superbly to gain $1 billion overall. Digital technology and technological convergence has a large and critical impact on the marketing of products as in today’s society, people spend far more time with technology than they do with anything else.

Marketing for films now are much easier as there is now social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, twitter etc to promote films and with help from the internet spreading the word is much easier, a good example being the Jungle book. The production company held a fan event where sneak peeks were spread and some of the actors were introduced too, they also had many teaser trailers and trailers to get fans excited ready for the release of the film. The Disney parks also got involved in marketing the film as they had sand models of characters from the film in 'Animal Kingdom' (one of the Disney Theme Parks). This then got people to share pictures of this on social media sites which resulted in word-of-mouth marketing. The film also had it's own snapchat filter and website for fans to get involved in called 'lawofthejungle.com'. However, the marketing the Jungle Book (1967) did not include much marketing other than movie posters and cinema signs due to the lack of internet and social media which we have nowadays. Yet as there was not much competition, especially in the animation industry, the film was very popular as it was for all the family to watch and Disney was already a very popular household name like it still is today.

The first Jungle book was made in 1967, was the 19th Disney movie to be made. It was the last film that Walt Disney himself oversaw as he unfortunately died during its production. It is also the first disney animated feature where the opening credits say who voiced each role. The animation appears a bit dated, in large part because it appears to use the Xeroxing method, but that doesn't detract from the great story Disney had created, or the voice actors who added life to this movie.

The total budget for the film was $4,000,000. The film grossed $141,843,612 (USA). The film was shown in countries such as the USA, UK, Germany and Sweden. The film was most popular in the USA where the film was made. The film has a 7.6 IMDb rating. It is also estimated to be the 29th highest grossing film of all time in the United States. The film is only 78 minutes long which may be surprising to a modern audience as we are now used to films being closer to 2 hours onwards. This may be partly to production costs and cinema running availability as the film would have only been shown in the cinemas at first as any people didn't have televisions yet so producing VCRs and DVDs was pointless.The Jungle Book was released in the United States on VHS in 1991 as part of the Walt Disney Classics line and in the United Kingdom in 1993. Home video sales outside North America totalled 14.8 million units by 1994. The film was later released on DVD and blu-ray for further audience consumption. It is now a widely accessible film on platforms such as Netflix and Sky, it is also one of the many available films that can be accessed by illegal internet streaming.

Disney then decided to make a live action remake of the film in 2016. This was to make a more modern and updated version of the successful family favourite which targeted all audiences whether they were alive when the original film was made or not. It was directed by Jon Favreau who is known for producing the Iron Man film series. It included a child actor (Neel Sethi) to play Mowgli and included voice actors and a lot of green screen to create realistic animals and jungle settings.The budget for the remake, however, was much more than the original at an amazing $175,000,000. On the opening weekend it made $103,261,464 (USA) and overall grossed $364,001,123 (USA) and $947,589,026 (worldwide) which is significantly more than the original. It has a 7.5 IMDb rating which is just under the original. It is hard to judge which film was more successful due to the difference in media in time, as it was hard to access the original in 1967 but it is much easier to access and market now.

Technology has a strong influence on the development and growth of the entertainment and amusement industry. The Walt-Disney world resort should integrate the latest form of technologies to give the customers an enhanced and high-quality experience. Technology has helped Walt-Disney reach the target market. The company uses social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to inform and connect to its customers on the services provided.

During the production stage of Disney movies, the role of digital technology is used to get the best out of the movie being created, such as CGI and live action. These go well when marketing a film by releasing a trailer, as the audience get a view of what has been incorporated in the film. Although John Carter released an action-packed trailer, the director, Andrew Stanton, failed to include a story along with it. As the film was his first live action film, it was likely he’d try to add as much CGI in as he could, but by doing this he failed to focus on more important area’s, resulting in it’s dismal reviews. The film features of the Jungle Book (2016) is much more advanced technology such as CGI and special effects to make it look so real even though most of the film is just green screens, puppets and computers. Live action remakes are very popular among Disney at the moment due to the advances in media technology and popularity of nostalgia among their audience. Other films that have been remade into a live action version includes; Tarzan, Cinderella, Beauty and The Beast etc.

The reboot of the JB was targeted to a wide audience including males and was rreleased to appeal to global audience.

As a product of this global brand it succeeded in attracting a wide range of age groups, not just the under-16s or its traditional family audience, to see the film. Disney’s achievement in re-making a Disney classic is phenomenal, in part due to the technology involved and the reinterpretation of the characters and the narrative, but also to the ability of the conglomerate to market and distribute the product and to value its audience.
The film enjoyed unrivalled success in its marketing and distribution to India, China and Europe and other overseas markets – a characteristic of Disney Studios.
In addition the film was made appealing to action-adventure fans and animation and special effects viewers. These are identifiable as middle-aged and male movie-goers – not typically associated with The Jungle Book ’s audience.
This is reflected in the global box office returns for the film, over $966 million, and in the critical acclaim it received – winning the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
The casting of an Indian actor as the main protagonist and international actors would have helped develop global sales.