Will Ron Howard Open WB's "Jungle Book"?

THR reports that Ron Howard is in talks to helm a new live-action adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's classic India-set 1894 short story collection  "The Jungle Book" at  Warner Bros--this after the departure of Alejandro González Iñárritu a month ago due to scheduling conflicts.

The pic will be a live action version of the story about an orphaned boy raised by wolves and other animals, which try to protect him from the ferocious tiger Shere-Khan. The tone will be a bit darker than previous film adaptations of the work

The most well known of which are the 1967 animated classic and the Stephen Sommers directed 1994 live-action live-action version starring Jason Scott Lee, Lena Headey and Cary Elwes.

Callie Kloves wrote the adapted script and Steve Kloves will produce with Howard should he sign on to do the pic. It is unclear whether or not Jungle Book would be his next picture. Howard is attached to direct several other feature films at the moment.

Since the property is in the public domain Disney is developing it's own film that "Iron Man" director Jon Favreau is in talks to helm using a Justin Marks script.