The Lion King (2019) (1 Viewer)

[Jake Lipson]

The Hollywood Reporter has a good interview with Disney's live-action production chief Sean Bailey where he talks about a lot of things. It's worth a read in its entirety, but I'm going to excerpt The Lion King stuff here:

THR: The Lion King trailer suggests it is a shot-for-shot remake. True?

Bailey: The Lion King is a revered and beloved movie, so you'd better revere and love those parts that the audience wants. But there are things in the movie that are going to be new. [And] it is a new form of filmmaking. Historical definitions don't work. It uses some techniques that would traditionally be called animation, and other techniques that would traditionally be called live action. It is an evolution of the technology Jon used in Jungle Book.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/n...n-chief-is-placing-big-bets-lion-king-1169170

 

[Jake Lipson]

I gotta admit: This poster looks awesome.

 

[SamT]

I very much liked The Jungle Book and Cinderella because they are different and new and not a shot by shot remake. I disliked Beauty and the Beast. The Lion King seems to be even more shot by shot than Beauty and the Beast. I hope it's not.

 

[Johnny Angell]

I very much liked The Jungle Book and Cinderella because they are different and new and not a shot by shot remake. I disliked Beauty and the Beast. The Lion King seems to be even more shot by shot than Beauty and the Beast. I hope it's not.

The many popular songs require some scenes, there would be audience revolt without them. My disappointment with B&tB was Belle’s singing. I like the actress but she didn’t have the singing chops for the role.

 

[SamT]

I think nobody had the singing chops in the live action. The animated Beauty and the Beast had such beautiful songs and professional singing that the live action felt like a bad karaoke night.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Here is the TV spot from the Oscars last night. It's slightly different than the trailer that dropped on Thanksgiving, but not by much.



I'm not sure why they are continuing to focus on almost shot-for-shot recreations of Circle of Life. We get it; that part is the same. It would have been nicer to see some different footage last night. Since they already revealed Simba's adult look in the end of the first teaser (by showing us a shot from the last scene of the movie), maybe last night would have been a cool time to reveal the new look of Scar.

But nope...it was a slightly different edit of the trailer with Circle of Life again. Not that it's bad; it's just not much different than the last look we had.

I mean, the biggest new thing in this trailer is the reveal of what John Kani's Rafiki voice sounds like with the "It is time" quote.

 

[SamT]

 

[SamT]

The voice of the uncle is terrible.

 

[Johnny Angell]

I hope “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” is in the final film.

 

[Wayne_j]

I agree that Scar was terrible.

 

[Malcolm R]

The voice of the uncle is terrible.

I agree that Scar was terrible.

That's Chiwatel Ejiofor (Amistad, 12 Years a Slave, Doctor Strange)

 

[Mikael Soderholm]

That's Chiwatel Ejiofor (Amistad, 12 Years a Slave, Doctor Strange)

And I though he was quite good, actually. No Jeremy Irons, but who is? Better than I thought when I realized Jeremy Irons wasn't gonna be in it.
Really looking forward to this.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I hope “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” is in the final film.

It's in the original filmalmost exactly like that. Timon and Pumbaa sing it right before Pumbaa walks off to chase a bug and ends up getting chased by Nala. The only difference is that Timon is not riding Pumbaa in the original but walking beside him. So I'm reasonably sure it will stay in there this time too.

Personally, I found the trailer underwhelming. It sure looks nice, I guess.

Edit: I've watched it a few more times, and I think I finally put my finger on my issue with it. It looks like Jon Favreau did what Disney hired him to do, which was obviously to render The Lion King in the photo-realistic style of his Jungle Book movie. He clearly has done that at the highest level possible. Technically, it's hard to find a thing to fault in that trailer.

The thing is that the photo-realism fundamentally does not look as expressive as the drawings from 1994 because real animals are not as expressive as the cartoons are. A big part of the reason that the original movie resonated so well in the first place is because of the emotion that was drawn into the animated performances (and I don't just mean the actors -- although they certainly emoted as well and were sensational -- but in this case I mean the actual animated performances drawn by the animators.) We are able to empathize with those characters because of how their emotion came through in the animated drawings on the screen.

Now, you've got the new voices saying the lines (or, in the case of Mufasa, the old voice saying the lines again), but you don't have the warmth and excitement and feeling in their faces because they weren't trying to do that. They're supposed to look as real as possible. But realism is not always your friend. So yeah...it looks as realistic as talking animals could look. But it left me cold.

I'm sure I'll see it at least once out of curiosity. I want it to be good. I want to like it. I enjoyed it before so I probably will like it again. But Disney could be re-releasing the original film again in July and I would be just as excited or more than I am now. (Of course, this new one will make more money than a re-release would.) But this trailer has me feeling like "Okay, let's just get this over with," as opposed to Aladdin, which I am very much looking forward to seeing reinterpreted.

 

[Jake Lipson]

This TV spot aired at the top of the first commercial break in Modern Family tonight, announcing the fact that full trailer is online. I don't think I've ever seen a TV spot to announce a trailer before.



The other thing that's interesting to me is the specificity of the movie being released "in 100 days."

It's completely crazy to me that we are 100 days -- or 99 days if you count to the Thursday previews -- away from The Lion King, and that Disney has Avengers, Aladdin and Toy Story 4 all before that.

This is the most crowded schedule I think they've ever had. When these films were originally dated a couple of years ago now, I thought that surely one of them would move, but here Disney is, providing their own competition and (probably) preventing the titles from reaching the maximum box office they would have had if they were more spread out from each other on the calendar.

There are only 56 days between the release of Aladdin and The Lion King remakes. That just seems like bad business to me.

Beauty and the Beast was in release for 119 days before it got to its final total of $504 million, and it didn't face direct competition from other resurfaced '90s Disney properties. According to Box Office Mojo, its total on its 56th day of release (May 12, 2017 following an opening day of March 17) was $489,331,16. That means Beauty and the Beast made ~$15 million from its 57th day of release onward. I just don't see any way that Aladdin would have that much left in the tank when it has direct competition from The Lion King.

If you consider that Toy Story 4 will also appeal to exactly the same audience even though it is a sequel and not a remake, there's only 26 days between Aladdin and Toy Story 4. Then, once that opens, there's only 28 days between Toy Story 4 and The Lion King. That just does not seem like good business to me. It appears that Disney is looking to make as much money as fast as possible with each of these, rather than nurturing them and helping them leg out to the largest possible gross over time. Of course, The Lion King is the last one in Disney's parade of '90s nostalgia this summer, so it probably will be the least impacted by future competition, but Aladdin and Toy Story 4 are really going to have to make most of their money right away.

Oh, and on another note, I'm not sure I agree that Chiwatel Ejiofor sounds horrible, but he doesn't sound like Jeremy Irons did. It feels a little weird hearing him up against James Earl Jones, who is of course reprising his role, because Mufasa sounds the same and yet Scar sounds different I've seen the original film so many times that it will probably take some getting used to with the new voices, so I want to reserve complete judgment until hearing everyone in the body of the film.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I just noticed something in the credits block at the end of the trailer.

As you can see, Julie Taymor is credited as an executive producer on the new film. She is the director of The Lion King Broadway show, for which she won a Tony Award. Thomas Schumacher is given the same credit. He was working at Disney Animation in the '90s when the original film was made, but is now the head of Disney Theatrical Productions.

The inclusion of them, especially Taymor, among the executive producers would seem to suggest that the new movie is going to borrow some ideas from the show. As far as I know, the Broadway directors of Beauty and the Beast (Robert Jess Roth) and Aladdin (Casey Nicholaw) were not involved on the remakes of those films, so this isn't just a procedure thing they always do.

I'm a big fan of the show and think it is tremendously successful at honoring what the original film was while expanding it in ways that were exciting and surprising, but which completely make sense within the world of the story. If they're going to use ideas from the show, I would take that as a good sign that maybe there will be something else in here we haven't been presented with yet. Hopefully.

 

[Sam Favate]

So far, it looks like this is going to be a pretty straight reinterpretation of the animated film, almost shot-for-shot, which is something I will never understand. I'm all for doing these live-action movies if it adds something to the story or the presentation that wasn't there the first time (Cinderella did this, so did Dumbo). I agree with Jake that the animated film could do things with expression and color that a photo-realistic film can't.

BTW, do we know if James Earl Jones re-recorded his lines for this movie? Or are they using his dialogue from the original film?

 

[Jake Lipson]

BTW, do we know if James Earl Jones re-recorded his lines for this movie? Or are they using his dialogue from the original film?

He recorded new tracks. We know this because his line "While others search for what they can take, a true king searches for what he can give" in the trailer is new. He's never said that as Mufasa before. Also, I'm pretty sure I recall Favreau saying something like he is honored to work with James Earl Jones back when the casting was first announced That is not a direct quote, but if they were just pulling Mufasa's dialogue from the previous film, there wouldn't be work for them to do together.

 

[Malcolm R]

He recorded new tracks. We know this because his line "While others search for what they can take, a true king searches for what he can give" in the trailer is new. He's never said that as Mufasa before.

I'm not doubting that he likely recorded new lines, but there's always the possibility that he recorded dozens of other lines for the original film that were not used. I believe that's how Pixar will include Don Rickles in the upcoming TS4.

 

[Jake Lipson]

there's always the possibility that he recorded dozens of other lines for the original film that were not used.

That is a great point. However, unlike Don Rickles, James Earl Jones is still alive and well. They could reuse his old tracks, but I don't think there would be any point to that. They're already paying the money to remake the movie. Paying James Earl Jones to record his lines again would be a drop in the bucket compared to the budget for the rest of the film. Also, his contract for the old film wouldn't have included language about reusing that work in a remake, so they might have to pay him again even if they did use the same tracks. So there's really no reason not to have him record again.

 

[SamT]

If they are using James Earl Jones, they have to use Jeremy Irons.