New details, images for Jon Favreau’s The Lion King have been unleashed

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Disney has what will be two of the biggest movies ever made coming out this year with AVENGERS: ENDGAME and STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER and their remake of THE LION KING could easily capitalize on nostalgia for the timeless original and become just as big as those two. Jon Favreau, his team and the impressive cast have an incredible mountain of expectations in front of them, and in a new profile Favreau revealed how they used VR technology to explore the all-CGI world created for the movie, while the cast talked about digging into their animal characters to find some way to bring something new to iconic characters.

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Speaking with EW all the way back in 2017 in the thick of production, Favreau spoke about how VR was implemented on set, which was covered in blue screen and little evidence to suggest there was anything “live-action” about the remake. The director, who used ground-breaking VFX to bring the remake of THE JUNGLE BOOK to life in 2016, equated the VR technology to the creating of a video game world they could step into simply for the purpose of making the movie. This allowed them to enter Pride Rock and other locations, and film CGI characters and environments as if it was a documentary feature.

“By removing the one physical element of Mowgli [from JUNGLE BOOK], we were no longer tethered to the fact that we had to have blue screen or an actual set or real cameras, so everything became virtual at that point,” Favreau explains. “Once that gave us the freedom to operate without actually having to move through physical photography, it allowed us to open ourselves up to a whole new approach, and that’s why it feels different than Jungle Book. We’ve basically built a multiplayer VR filmmaking game just for the purposes of making this movie.”

He continued:

“The whole reason for all of this is to make an animated film feel live-action — to have a real crew come in, interface with an animated film, and make all the camera decisions that you would on set, instead of somebody sitting at a keyboard programming in the camera moves,” Favreau explains. “If you look at the way we’re covering and cutting [the animated performances], all of that is related to traditional cinema.”

The original LION KING came out before the creation of the Best Animated Film Oscar, but it still walked away with trophies for Best Original Score (Hans Zimmer) and Original Song (“Can You Feel the Love Tonight”, Elton John and Tim Rice). The movie remains the highest-grossing hand-drawn animated movie ever, making over $400 million across its main release and re-releases, including a hugely successful one in 3D. With that level of fame comes more than enough pressure, especially deciding what special moments need to be included. Favreau had trouble figuring out what to include in his take, saying “there were about six things on that list for JUNGLE BOOK. This one has about 60.”

Along with the piece, EW dropped some new stills from the movie, including Simba (Donald Glover) cuddling up with Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen).

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Though everyone is curious about what the new cast will bring to the characters, perhaps none will be met with as much scrutiny as Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar, taking over for Jeremy Irons in the original. Irons crafted one of the great movie villains with his theatrical take on the lion baddie, but Ejiofor is looking for something more cerebral and vicious, with words like “brutalized” thrown around.

“There’s something quite interesting in knowing that you’re always holding a lethal capacity. Especially with Scar, whether it’s a vocal quality that allows for certain confidence or certain aggression, to always know that at the end of it you’re playing somebody who has the capacity to turn everything on its head in a split second with outrageous acts of violence… that can completely change the temperature of a scene.”

As well, there’s the new dynamic for everyone’s favorite meerkat and warthog, and Eichner and Rogen spoke about how they had to switch things up to match the tone of the new movie.

Eichner:

“The aesthetic style of this movie is so wildly different from the original that there are certain aspects of that type of voiceover acting that Nathan Lane and [original Pumbaa] Ernie Sabella did which would, as great as it is, simply feel completely out of place in this version, which is not to say that we don’t nod to it here and there where we can, but we didn’t lean into that style quite as much.  Nathan and Ernie were literally coming out of a legendary production of Guys and Dolls on Broadway, which I saw as a kid, actually, and they really leaned into that old-school, vaudeville, Borscht Belt-inspired sensibility for Timon and Pumbaa. Seth and I are obviously not coming out of a production of Guys and Dolls, but I think overall our dynamic is a bit more conversational. I’m not saying it’s subtle, but it is conversational.”

Rogen:

“They’re very, very, very close friends, and like any two people who spend a lot of time together, they start to have things that bother one another about each other. Like, meerkats are very quick, fast-paced animals and warthogs are… a little on the slower side.”

While everyone else is new to THE LION KING cast, one original veteran is returning for the remake, and that’s none other than James Earl Jones himself as Mufasa. Favreau talked about how it seemed to make no sense to give the icon any direction because, well, he *is* Mufasa.

“James Earl Jones would do a take and then ask me for direction, and I honestly couldn’t give an answer! I was like, ‘You’re Mufasa!’ Everything he said sounded perfect because it was him saying it.”

The original movie is too much of a classic to completely turn the story on its head for the remake, but based on what I've read, seen and the faith I have in Favreau, I have hope this take will be different enough from the original to stand on its own feet (paws?). At the same time, the team seems committed to delivering on what fans want, so we should expect plenty of callbacks to the original, albeit with a more grounded take, and one that may even give kids nightmares. Hey, the jungle is a scary place. 

THE LION KING also stars Beyonce Knowles-Carter, John Oliver, John Kani, Alfre Woodard, JD McCrary, Shahadi Wright Joseph and more and hits theaters July 19.