The circle of life, as Elton John once sang, moves us all – now it seems Jon Favreau’s path unwinding has arrived at The Lion King. The filmmaker has been confirmed to direct a new "re-imagining" of Disney's classic animation; he cheekily tweeted a hint of his next project with a couple of emojis, swiftly confirmed by an official Disney press release.
Favreau is still basking in the billion-dollar afterglow of his wildly successful live-action/CGI Jungle Book remake, and it’s safe to assume he will redeploy the same CGI-heavy performance-capture methods for The Lion King (although, without any human characters, there may be no live-action elements at all this time around).
It’s the latest in a long line of modern updates to Disney’s animated back catalogue, following the box-office success of Maleficent, Cinderella, and indeed Favreau’s The Jungle Book (the latter of which is due a sequel, with Favreau still technically attached to direct).
The original Lion King, loosely based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, was released in 1994 at the peak of Disney’s 1990s renaissance, and remains the highest-grossing hand-drawn animated film of all time. It became almost as famous for its Grammy- and Oscar-winning Elton John/Tim Rice soundtrack, and spawned a successful Broadway musical which has run for 19 years.
The new film will “include songs from the film”, in keeping with the practice of most of Disney’s recent remakes, but the press release does not mention if any of the songs introduced to the stage show will make it on screen. (What, no Chow Down?)
There’s no word on an exact release date yet, but since Disney are putting this into “fast track” production, expect a whole new generation of children to be singing Hakuna Matata at full volume near you very soon.
See where The Lion King features on our list of the 50 Best Kids' Movies Ever.