In The Jungle Book (2016) King Louie is a Gigantopithecus, a huge species of ape believed to have gone extinct 9,000,000-100,000 years ago. The only recorded fossils of this creature are the jaw bones. The change was made from the 1967 film because orangutans are not native to India.

Image from preview.redd.it and submitted by multimaskedman
image showing In The Jungle Book (2016) King Louie is a Gigantopithecus, a huge species of ape believed to have gone extinct 9,000,000-100,000 years ago. The only recorded fossils of this creature are the jaw bones. The change was made from the 1967 film because orangutans are not native to India.

nobodythinksofyou on November 11st, 2019 at 23:14 UTC »

Interesting! I originally thought the creators were just being weird by making him so huge.

mikenice1 on November 12nd, 2019 at 00:03 UTC »

This is the only live action remake that's worked for me so far. The rest have felt flat.

Harold3456 on November 12nd, 2019 at 00:26 UTC »

I always figured the creators changed him because they needed a word that rhymed with "magnificus"