The Lion King

[MichaelC]

What do you think of the casting in the Lion King remake? Most of the casting I either like, or don't know enough about to judge one way or the other. The one bit of obvious stunt casting I hate is Beyonce as Nala. I've seen her in "Austin Powers" and she was awful. Has she done something later that shows drastic improvement?

[Frontier]

Yeah, Beyonce as Nala just really stands out to me as a bit of stunt-casting, but I guess it's stunt-casting I can kind of understand.

The rest of the cast looks pretty good .

[Elmo]

this cast looks amazing. however, I see no real reason to remake the Lion King at all. it is a classic on its own.

[Frontier]

this cast looks amazing. however, I see no real reason to remake the Lion King at all. it is a classic on its own.

I just don't get why they have Jon Favreau directing it like it's a live-action movie like with the Jungle Book.

Isn't it just going to be CG animals roaming around a live-action background or even a green-screened one? Isn't that basically an animated movie when you get right down to it?

[cadet]

What do you think of the casting in the Lion King remake? Most of the casting I either like, or don't know enough about to judge one way or the other. The one bit of obvious stunt casting I hate is Beyonce as Nala. I've seen her in "Austin Powers" and she was awful. Has she done something later that shows drastic improvement?

She was good in Dreamgirls. And acting like she finds Jay-Z attractive.

[Elmo]

She was good in Dreamgirls. And acting like she finds Jay-Z attractive.

Jay Z is an extremely intelligent and charming person so it's not exactly strange to find him attractive

[Midvillian1322]

Beyonce is probaly working on some music for the movie and she does have a sexy smooth talking voice. She was fine in dream girls but probaly like top 5 in people who stood out with Murphy,Hudson, and Jamie foxx being the real stand outs

@elmo yea he looks like this kid richard i went to school with and Richard had a slight case of the downs. Ppl use to call him jay. But yea if you hear him do an interview hes charming AF

Also im hopong Zazu is given some funny lines. I wamma hear Oliver go on some rants as Zazu.

[robreedwrites]

I'm actually not that concerned about Beyonce being adult Nala. Unless they REALLY expand on it, it's not that big of a part. She comes in, tells Simba he's trash, sings "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" and then says "Simba is the rightful king" to Scar.

Otherwise, I'm fairly excited for this. I like the cast, and I'll be interested to see what Favreau changes or expands on.

[Jackalope89]

...
Can't Disney adapt other classic fairy tales, rather then keep on doing unnecessary remakes of films that aren't even that old?

Watched remake of Beauty and the Beast. While it was nice they expanded on how the Beast came to be, overall it didn't measure up to the original.
Have only seen clips of Jungle Book, but Christopher Walkin has nothing on Louie Prima as King Louie.

I guess its cool that James Earl Jones is reprising his role as Mufasa, but I just can't get excited over another remake that probably won't be as good as the original.

[robreedwrites]

...
Can't Disney adapt other classic fairy tales, rather then keep on doing unnecessary remakes of films that aren't even that old?

Watched remake of Beauty and the Beast. While it was nice they expanded on how the Beast came to be, overall it didn't measure up to the original.
Have only seen clips of Jungle Book, but Christopher Walkin has nothing on Louie Prima as King Louie.

I guess its cool that James Earl Jones is reprising his role as Mufasa, but I just can't get excited over another remake that probably won't be as good as the original.

That's probably the only thing that I found disappointing in that film (well, that and no one will ever be able to outdo Phil Harris' Baloo, but that's very subjective). With King Louie, the film felt like they wanted to do something more ominous while still retain that song and it didn't quite mesh for me. Otherwise, I thought the Jungle Book did a great job as a remake of the Disney film while pulling in (slightly) more material from Kipling's work. For me, The Jungle Book (2016) is a stronger film than the 67 version in almost every way, though the 67 will always have a larger place in my heart.

[Hiromi]

As much as I love James Earl Jones, I'm kinda getting worried that he's gotten too old to really get his voice as low as he used to, it's pretty apparent when he does his Darth Vader reprisals.

[Midvillian1322]

As much as I love James Earl Jones, I'm kinda getting worried that he's gotten too old to really get his voice as low as he used to, it's pretty apparent when he does his Darth Vader reprisals.

His normal voice would be fine for Mufasa. Every other voice actor has changed. His normal voice is pretty deep on its own. Enough to bring the grafitas he brought to Mufasa in the 90s.

[AdamFTF]

this cast looks amazing. however, I see no real reason to remake the Lion King at all. it is a classic on its own.

Because they already made a movie with a real young boy surrounded by photorealistic animals and they want to see if they can make a decent movie with photorealistic CGI animals without an actual human being the focal point. That's, like, a good chunk of why Disney does what they do. To see what they can do with the technology available. Even in the beginning. Snow White was Walt seeing if he could make a feature length cartoon. Pinocchio was them seeing how far they could push detailed backgrounds. Bambi was an experiment in whether the animators could create realistic animal movement. Only now they do it with properties from their back catalog instead of just grabbing some children's book off their shelf.

These Disney live action remakes get a lot of flack, but I find them interesting. Maybe not "I was swept away by the Disney magic" level of appeal, but interesting. Mostly, it's the kind of interesting that comes from someone adapting a classic story for the second time. Or the kind of interesting that comes from wondering what they'll do differently than the last "remake". Sometimes I'll even read the original story and watch the previous Disney version beforehand just to spot the changes. I've got to say, this does look interesting. It seems they're leaning heavily into the "Africa" aspect. They've hired a 90% Black cast (which is great, by the way) and it seems they've renamed two of the hyenas so that their names at least sound African (I don't speak any African languages, so I don't know if Azizi and Kamari are African names or not). And Lion King, other than borrowing heavily from Shakespearean stories, is a Disney original so you can't be quite sure what they'll do with the story. I doubt they'll completely change it like they did for Pete's Dragon, but still.

[Jackalope89]

Lion King borrowed heavily from Kimba the White Lion.

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[AdamFTF]

Lion King borrowed heavily from Kimba the White Lion.

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Maybe in terms of some visuals and the fact that the story is about lions. But Kimba is more of an environmental story about what happens after humans and animals start to cross paths. The Lion King is more of a Shakespare-inspired story about kingship drawing heavily from Hamlet and the various King Henry plays but with African animals standing in for humans.