As I’m sure some of you may have seen, last night Disney released our first look trailer for Jon Favreau’s upcoming “live-action” version of ‘The Lion King’, which arrives on cinema screens next summer.
Following on from Jon Favreau’s massive success with the remake of ‘The Jungle Book’, the next project he decided to tackle was a photo-realistic remake of Disney’s classic animation ‘The Lion King’. As every child (or former child) should know, the story is set in the African savanna where a future king Simba must overcome betrayal and tragedy to assume his rightful place on Pride Rock.
The casting for this new version is nothing short of spectacular. Donald Glover takes the lead as adult Simba, with Beyonce as the female lead, Nala. Chiwetel Ejiofor (‘Doctor Strange’, ‘Serenity’, ’12 Years a Slave’) stars as evil uncle Scar, whilst Seth Rogen as the warthog Pumbaa, alongside Billy Eichner (‘American Horror Story’, ‘Parks and Recreation’) as meerkat Timon. John Oliver (‘Last Week Tonight’) will play the hornbill Zazu, John Kani (‘Black Panther’s King T’Chaka) stars as wise old mandrill Rafiki, Keegan-Michael Key (‘Key & Peele’) plays hyena Kamari, and Alfre Woodard (‘Luke Cage’, ‘State of Affairs’) as Simba’s mother Sarabi. As you can tell from the trailer, the legendary James Earl Jones returns to the role he played in the original animation, Simba’s father, Mufasa.
Young Simba and Nala will be voiced by JD McCrary (‘The Paynes’, ‘I’m Dying Up Here’ and worked with Glover, aka Childish Gambino, on the song “Terrified”) and Shahadi Wright Joseph (‘The Lion King’ On Broadway) respectively.
Jeff Nathanson (‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge’, ‘The Terminal’) has written the script for this new iteration based on the original 1994 screenplay by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts and Linda Woolverton. Unlike Favreau’s remake of ‘The Jungle Book’ which dropped most of the songs, as you can probably tell by the cast, ‘The Lion King’ will remain a musical.
‘The Lion King’ will arrive in UK cinemas on 19th July 2019.
