The Jungle Book (2016 film) success, grossing over $966 million, making it the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2016 and the 40th-highest-grossing film of all time, and was praised for its visual effects, musical score, direction, faithfulness to the original animated film, and vocal performances, particularly those of Murray, Kingsley, and Elba. At the 89th Academy Awards, the film won the award for Best Visual Effects. Mowgli is a "man cub" raised by the wolf Raksha and her pack, led by Akela, in an Indian jungle ever since he was brought to them as a baby by the black panther Bagheera. Bagheera trains Mowgli to learn the
The Jungle Book (2016 film) 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