Could We Be Getting Disney's Live-Action The Lion King Sooner Than We First Thought?

IMAGE VIA DISNEY

We all know Disney is on a hot streak in every department from Marvel to their Animation Studio, another place which is getting announcements left, right and centre are their live-action adaptations with The Jungle Book blowing everyone away.

Now, when Disney announced they were making a new “reimaging” of The Lion King everyone got excited and that double when Jon Favreau was confirmed as the director.

Excited for my next project 🦁👑

— Jon Favreau (@Jon_Favreau) 28 September 2016

On the other hand, we all knew making this movie would take Favreau and his team years, but it looks like we might be getting sooner with The Lion King taking precedence over The Jungle Book 2 if this interview is anything to go by.

While talking to CinemaBlend, Robert Legato, Favreau’s visual effects supervisor on The Jungle Book, revealed they’ll be together once again on The Lion King.

“Yeah, actually, I am…. It’s the very next one (we’re doing),” he said.

Adding “We’ve already started plans, and all of the various things, and the updates to the various ways that we filmed The Jungle Book, to add and extend the art form a little bit more in Lion King, which is going to be another live-action looking movie.”

To be honest, I don’t know how much improving they could do on the CGI because in The Jungle Book it felt like Favreau and co took it to how far it could go, but the fact they think they can go that little bit further is super exciting and we will all cry a little bit more because Mufasa’s death will be real.

Legato continued “With Lion King, the only way I think we could make this movie is to have made Jungle Book before and say, ‘Yes. Take (Mowgli) out of it, look at those scenes. Yes, I believe those scenes are good. I believe we can make a movie that way.’”

According to Disney, we can expect some original songs from the animated classic but didn't reveal which ones. I’d love “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” to be one of them and “Hakuna Matata” is nailed on to show up.

The 1994 film went on to gross $968.8 million worldwide, winning two Oscars and was turned into a stage musical.

No release date has been set, but they’re already in early pre-production don’t be surprised if we see before 2020.