Disney is moving full-steam ahead on their new live-actionLion Kingmovie. The studio’s upcoming reimagining of the animated classic has found its screenwriter in the form ofJeff Nathanson. His previous credits include theSteven SpielbergmoviesCatch Me If You CanandThe Terminal, as well as theRush Hourmovies.
Deadlinebroke the news that Disney hired the veteran screenwriter for the project. After the success ofThe Jungle Bookthis year, the studio decided to fast track their new take onThe Lion King. The hiring ofJeff Nathansonfor the movie comes just a couple of weeks after Disney made the official announcement that they would be moving ahead with a remake ofDisney’s The Lion King.
According to Disney, this new “reimagining” as they call it, will implement the same technology that was used to bring the animals and environments to life inThe Jungle Book. They have brought ondirector Jon Favreaufor the project, who also directedThe Jungle Bookfor the studio. Disney andJon Favreauare also still reportedly working on a sequel toThe Jungle Bookin addition to this new version ofThe Lion King.
WhileThe Jungle Bookwas referred to as alive-action remake, the vast majority of the movie was CGI, save forNeel Sethiwho played Mowgli and a few bits of actual sets that were blended with the animation. So, it makes sense that Disney wouldn’t call this new version ofThe Lion Kinga live-action remake, because without any human characters, there will likely be no live-action elements to it, but it will likely utilize motion capture. At the moment it doesn’t seem like Disney has any plans of adding human characters toThe Lion King story, so it will most likely be entirely motion capture and CGI characters.
The original animated version ofThe Lion Kingremains one of the most successfulanimated moviesever made. The movie grossed $968 million back in 1994 on a budget of just $45 million. Disney has also been enjoying a ton of success with their live-action adaptations of animated classics, with bothCinderellaandThe Jungle Bookcrushing it at the box office, not to mention the live-actionBeauty and the BeastDisney is releasing next year. This new version ofThe Lion Kingdoesn’t yet have a release date, but withJeff Nathansonpenning the script now, we should expect word on that sooner rather than later.
