The Lion King: The Official Movie Special

THE CIRCLE OF LIFE When the classic The Lion King was released in 1994, it became a worldwide phenomenon, spawning into a groundbreaking stage musical, and now a whole new realization that combines techniques and vernaculars of animation, cinema, and human performance. Its characters and songs have captivated generations. Now, pioneering director Jon Favreau has reimagined The Lion King for a modern-day audience. A revolutionary blend of virtual reality and new, ultrafast rendering technologies, The Lion King builds on the legacy of the original movie by bringing the adventures of its cast of iconic characters to stunning, vivid new life. In retelling the story of Simba, Nala, Mufasa, Scar, Timon, and Pumbaa, Favreau and his collaborators have reinvented the medium, crafting a film that points the way to the future for moviemaking…

In the peaceful Pride Lands, the Circle of Life begins once more with the birth of a future lion king. On Pride Rock, Simba, the newborn lion cub of King Mufasa and Queen Sarabi, is presented by Rafiki, the king’s shaman, to the assembled animals. Meanwhile, in the shadows, Mufasa’s embittered brother, Scar, plots to usurp the king and dispose of Simba, with the aid of the hyenas Shenzi, Azizi, and Kamari. Simba and his lioness cub friend Nala have a near miss when they venture to the Elephant Graveyard (despite the protestations of Zazu, the king’s hornbill majordomo). The pair avoid an early end thanks only to the timely intervention of Mufasa. Then, engineered by Scar, tragedy strikes, sending Simba far from the Pride Lands to a new life in…

The Lion King – The Official Movie Special: Were your experiences from directing The Jungle Book (2016) a help in approaching The Lion King? Jon Favreau: It took me the two and a half years of The Jungle Book to scale the learning curve. I came in as somebody who understood about visual effects from films like Iron Man, but this was going to be fully embracing CGI – not just a metal suit, but organic characters and fur. At the same time, while I’m learning more about how to use the technology effectively, the technology is getting better, so you’re getting this synergistic confluence of circumstances that leads to the ability to show things on the screen in a way that you hadn’t been able to before. What that does is…

“The reason that we used the black box theater technique was because I was trying to pursue an approach that made this film feel less like an animated movie and more like a live-action film. Instead of having people doing motion capture and getting that data, we were able to get the reference of the choices they were making from an acting perspective. “Because most of these characters are lions, you can’t just retarget a human performance captured from a face onto a lion and expect it to feel like a real lion. We would bring the actors into the room together and we made it a top-lit, dark little theater, like you would have for a theater rehearsal. Along the periphery on long lenses, we had video cameras that would…

Casting starts with being nervous! Especially in the case of this movie. What do you do? A lot of the original cast are still around; what messages are you sending with each announcement? “What we wanted to do was honor the past, but also look forward and do something fresh. That’s why the first two announcements that we made – I wanted to make sure they were at the same time – were James Earl Jones coming back as Mufasa, and then Donald Glover playing Simba. “I think the audiences who were paying attention – the people out there who are tapped into social media, who had an ear to the ground on this production – overwhelmingly supported what we were doing. With a new production, you want somebody to bring their…

The Lion King – The Official Movie Special: How does it feel to be part of this new version of The Lion King? Donald Glover: It’s very special. I have a son who loves animals, and the lion is his favorite, so it will be cool that in two years he’ll be old enough to understand. He’s really going to love this. I actually feel a great amount of responsibility. I didn’t feel the joy of it immediately, I felt all the responsibility, because I know how much it meant to me, and now it will be out there forever. What did you think when you first heard about the project? When I first heard Jon Favreau was doing it, I was very excited, because I really liked The Jungle Book adaptation he…