A live action version of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is on the way. I liked it better the first time when it was called Tarzan.

Variety says the BBC is teaming up with Pathe to adapt the book into a live action movie with a solid $50 million budget. For a movie whose major expenses will be animal wranglers and plastic vines, that should cover it. Especially when you consider that it’s being directed by John Downer, who is not Debbie’s depressing husband but instead is a guy who makes nature films for television. I doubt he’ll need a big computer generated effects budget.

The plan is for Downer to use a script by Richard Kurti and Bev Doyle, fly over to a Tiger Reserve in India, and shoot the movie without getting eaten. Sounds simple, but the film is expected to take two years to complete.

Most people know The Jungle Book as one of Disney’s golden era animated movies, the story of a boy named Mowgli raised in the jungle by its various animal inhabitants. He’s kidnapped by a singing, dancing, monkey king named Louie and has to be rescued by his friends in the form of a cranky Panther named Bagheera and a hipster bear named Baloo. Of course Rudyard Kipling’s book is much less cutsie, and since Downer is a nature director he’ll probably find a way to make it even more boring still. I think I’ll stick with the Disney version.