"I've always been very resistant to dive into CGI," Favreau said, citing his fears of the "uncanny valley," an effect where computer-generated human characters cause a response of revulsion in an audience. But, impressed by advances in computing power and techniques and by the work on films like 2011's "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" and 2009 "Avatar," he felt emboldened to take on a classic tale with new tools. (As the idea to update "Jungle Book" using digital tools occurred to Disney, it also occurred to another giant media company in Burbank, Warner Bros., which has a similar feature film underway, "Jungle Book: Origins," with Andy Serkis at the helm and scheduled for release in 2017.)