The race of the two Jungle Book films continues.  Disney’s iteration has a leg up on Warner Bros.’ adaptation since it has both a director and a release date, and now it has a star.  Deadline reports that Idris Elba will provide the voice of the villainous tiger Shere Khan in director Jon Favreau’s adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling book.  Favreau’s film will be a mixture of live-action and CGI, and so it appears that Shere Khan will be brought to life via the latter.  Elba is currently gearing up to go shoot True Detective director Cary Fukunaga’s next film, the child soldier drama Beasts of No Nation, but he feels like an excellent fit for the character of Khan.

Disney’s film is slated for release on October 9, 2015, so production will likely get underway this summer.  Meanwhile, Warner Bros. is on the hunt for a director for its live-action The Jungle Book film after Alejandro González Iñárritu dropped out.  Ron Howard was recently mentioned in connection with the project, but further confirmation has yet to materialize.