Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto, Christian Bale to attend world premiere of Netflix's Mowgli in Mumbai

Two years after Disney released the live-action version of their 1967 animated hit, The Jungle Book (2016), another version, Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle, directed by Andy Serkis, is all set to premiere on Netflix on 7 December. Significantly, the director and his cast will be attending the world premiere of the film in Mumbai on 25 November 2018. The premiere marks the first time that a Hollywood film is choosing the Indian city for its debut.

Christian Bale (who voices the panther Bagheera), Freida Pinto (who plays Messua) and Rohan Chand (who plays the lead Mowgli) will walk the red carpet alongside Serkis and his son, Louis Ashbourne Serkis (who voices Bhoot).

Pinto and Chand, along with Matthew Rhys, play the human characters in the adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling classic. Cate Blanchett, Andy Serkis, Naomie Harris, Peter Mullan, and Benedict Cumberbatch have also lent their voices as Kaa, Baloo, Nisha, Akela and Shere Khan, respectively.

In India, Netflix will be dubbed Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Bengali. The online film is produced by Jonathan Cavendish, Steve Kloves and David Barron.

For the Hindi version, the streaming platform has lined up a formidable trio to voice the iconic characters of Baloo bear, Nisha the wolf and Shere Khan the tiger. Actors Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff, along with actress Madhuri Dixit, will be voicing them. They all acted together in classic films like Parinda (1989) and Ram Lakhan (1989).

Furthermore, actor Abhishek Bachchan and actress Kareena Kapoor Khan will be voicing Bagheera and Kaa the python, respectively.

In 2016, Disney's The Jungle Book (2016) had a dubbed Hindi version that featured Om Puri as Bagheera the panther, Irrfan Khan as Baloo the bear, Priyanka Chopra as Kaa the python, Shefali Shah as Raksha the wolf (named Nisha in Netflix version), Rajesh Khattar as Akela the wolf, and Nana Patekar as Shere Khan the tiger.