As of May 2017, director, actor, and producer Jon Favreau began his production of the live-action version of one of the most world renowned classics, The Lion King. He first announced it by posting a picture of the actor Donald Glover quoting a famous song and line from the movie, “I just can’t wait to be king,” and soon after posting a picture of the legendary actor James Earl Jones who voiced Mufasa in the original classic, stating “Looking forward to working with this legend” with a hashtag “Mufasa,” in early 2017. Many speculations arose from these two posts. Rumors had been ongoing about there being another Lion King in the far future, but not everybody was sure it was going to be followed through.
Favreau also released another live-action Disney Classic, The Jungle Book in 2016, reintroducing beloved characters with a new approach. In April, Favreau spoke with Scarlett Johansson in front of a sold out audience at New York City’s Visual School of Arts Theatre. They were discussing his past success, his views on how to reimagine classics, and his future projects.
“When you’re directing, you have to love [what you’re making]. You have to love it to the point of obsession,” Favreau told Johansson “I have to live, breathe, sleep it, dream it. If I’m going to do my best work, I need to be completely immersed… you look at the material and you get inspired, and then try to update it for our time.”
Favreau has confirmed that the release of the new Lion King will be on July 19th, 2019 with a predominantly full cast of voice actors for the characters.
As a Disney enthusiast, a true Lion King lover, and a future animator, hearing this type of news and reading these exact words excels my faith to the fullest. There aren’t words to explain what The Lion King truly means to me. It’s not just a movie with a bunch of “singing animals” that live in Africa. It’s a legendary movie, a story, and a lifetime that has infused me with the passion to create such art and touch the lives of people all over like it has me.
Every voice actor, director, song, and character has had some sort of emotional impact and connection with me, they’ve gotten me through good and bad times and they made a movie that depicted real life. Looking forward into the future I plan to be a 2D animator at Walt Disney Studios, my goal is to make bright and colorful animations with a traditional Disney touch. I’d love to continue the story in some way with my own work, whether it be a short film or more scenes with characters that aren’t shown as much as some would like in the movie.
So I sincerely thank and congratulate Jon Favreau on his latest project. I know it’ll be great and it’ll touch the lives of our new generation just like the original movie did for our past generation. The King has finally Returned.
