Get ready for the return of Disney’s The Lion King. The Walt Disney Studios and director Jon Favreau are putting together a ‘reimagining’ of Disney’s first modern-era mega animated hit – The Lion King. It’s on the fast track to production and is rumored to be a ‘live-action’ remake just like Favreau did with The Jungle Book.
The project follows the technologically groundbreaking smash hit The Jungle Book, directed by Favreau, which debuted in April and has earned $965.8 million worldwide. The technology of making computer generated world look completely photo-realistic was on display in The Jungle Book. I can’t wait to see it used again.
Excited for my next project ??
— Jon Favreau (@Jon_Favreau) September 28, 2016
According to Disney, The Lion King will build on Disney’s success of reimagining its classics for a contemporary audience with films like Maleficent, Cinderella, and The Jungle Book. The upcoming Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson as Belle, is already one of the most anticipated movies of 2017.
Like Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King will include songs from the animated film. Disney and Favreau are also in development on a sequel to The Jungle Book. No release date has been announced for either film.
The Lion King (1994) is one of the biggest animated films of all time with a lifetime global box office gross of $968.8 million, including $422.8 million domestically. It won Academy Awards for the original song “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” (Elton John, Tim Rice) and original score (Hans Zimmer), plus two Grammy Awards, with the soundtrack selling over 14 million copies. In 1997, the stage production The Lion King made its Broadway debut, winning six Tony Awards; 19 years later, it remains one of Broadway’s biggest hits alongside several other productions running around the world, including London, Hamburg, Tokyo, Madrid, Mexico City, Shanghai, and North America. Translated into eight different languages, its 23 global productions have been seen by more than 85 million people across every continent except Antarctica. The Lion King’s worldwide gross exceeds that of any film, Broadway show or other entertainment title in box office history. Not too shabby, right?
For Disney, the movie remakes help introduce the over 600 million newly minted middle-class citizens around the world, but mostly in China, to Disney’s valuable intellectual property. It also gives Disney another crack at that old merchandise egg. Of course, when the remakes fall flat (cough Pete’s Dragon cough), we’re all supposed to just forget about that.
Are you a fan of Disney’s plan to remake just about everything? Or do you think The Lion King is a step too far?
Worst. Possible. Project.
This is a pretty bad idea but the worst possible upcoming live action remake project from Disney is DUMBO from Tim Burton.
I don’t mind some of the live-action remakes, especially the ones that featured animated humans (Maleficent, Cinderella), but this just sounds like a bad idea. I thought The Jungle Book and Pete’s Dragon were mediocre, and I can’t see how a CGI (which is NOT live-action, despite what Disney would call it) Lion King could be any better.
If it’s anything like the Jungle Book remake (and it will be), this is gonna be a gigantic smash hit.
The naysayers are gonna look pretty foolish.
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