CGI animals speak in the first trailer for Disney’s Lion King remake

Disney has had wild success remaking its classic animated movies as live-action spectacles, with 2017’s Beauty and the Beast making an especially big splash. The company is keeping it up this year, with a live-action remake of Aladdin coming out in May and The Lion King hitting theaters in July. Although is it a live-action remake if the lions and birds and meerkats and so forth are computer-generated? A question for the philosophers.

Anyway, there’s a new trailer:

Disney has assembled an impressive voice cast for this remake, with Donald Glover as Simba and freaking Beyoncé as Nala. I can’t say I love what we heard of Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar in this trailer, though. Just based on the snippet we get here, I’m not hearing the menace and playfulness that oozed out of Jeremy Irons’ performance in the 1994 film:

Maybe it’ll work better in context. James Earl Jones has returned to voice Mufasa, which is alright by me. Meanwhile, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen are playing Timon and Pumbaa, which checks out.

Disney has a nice little racket going here. People who grew up with the original animated movies will see these remakes out of nostalgia, and they’ll bring their kids, who will become new fans in turn. Disney, you diabolical mastermind.

The Lion King is directed by Jon Favreau, who also directed Disney’s 2016’s Jungle Book remake. If there’s anyone who knows how to sell talking CGI animals, it’s him. He also directed the first Iron Man movie, making him the man who jumpstarted the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and is the head honcho on The Mandalorian, Disney’s first-ever live-action Star Wars series. I think this guy might be the most quietly influential director in Hollywood.

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