The Lion King (2019 Film)

About

The Lion King (2019 Film) refers to the 2019 CGI remake of Disney's 1994 film The Lion King. The film, directed by Jon Favreau, will be released on July 19th, 2019, and features a star-studded cast, including Donald Glover as Simba, Beyoncé as Nala, James-Earl Jones as Mufasa, and John Oliver as Zazu.

History

On September 28th, 2016, Disney confirmed that Jon Favreau would be directing a live-action remake of The Lion King, to be released in 2019. The film will expand upon the CGI technology Favreau employed in 2016's The Jungle Book. In February of 2017, Donald Glover was cast as Simba and James Earl Jones was announced to be reprising his role as Mufasa from the 1994 film. In April, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen were cast as Timon and Pumba, respectively. On November 1st, 2017, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter was confirmed to be playing the female lead, Nala. That day, Disney tweeted^[1] an image showing the entire cast, gaining over 32,000 retweets (shown below).

The announcement was well-received, with Jezebel,^[2] Buzzfeed,^[3] Twitter Moments,^[4] and more expressing or compiling excitement from around the internet about the news. Many Twitter users expressed their excitement about the casting (examples shown below).

On November 22nd, 2018, Walt Disney Studios released the first teaser for the film, gaining over 63 million views (shown below, left). On April 10th, 2018, they released the first official trailer, gaining over 24 million views (shown below, right).

Reception

Roughly a week before the film was released to the general public, reviews began being posted across media sites, and critics were mostly mixed about the film's quality. As of July 11th, 2019, the film has an aggregate score of 55/100 on Metacritic.^[15] Critics with favorable opinions included Richard Roeper,^[16] who wrote about the film's impressive visuals and solid voice acting performances. Kendra James of The Verge^[17] wrote that the film was an impressive display of CGI technology, but was overall an inferior clone of the original, which has been described as a nearly shot-for-shot remake of the original. Slant,^[18] in the most negative review, wrote, "The subject of this tiresome retread is ultimately less the 'circle of life' and more the circle of consumption."

Online Presence

Reactions to the first teaser were mixed. Some were thrilled by the trailer, including user @imnotsharpie^[5] (shown below, left). Others mocked the film's animation, including user @nellucnhoj^[6] (shown below, right). The first teaser gained over 59,000 points on Reddit.^[9]

The first full trailer, which showed recreations of many memorable scenes from the 1994 original, led to more complaints about the animation. In particular, people complained about the lack of emotion evident on the CGI characters. Tumblr user ankle-beez^[7] wrote a sarcastic post about Simba's static face as he runs away from wildebeests in a harrowing scene taken from the original (shown below, left). Twitter user @DanaSchwartzzz^[8] tweeted a sarcastic comment that the film looked very beige, gaining over 450 retweets and 4,700 likes (shown below, right). The first trailer gained over 32,000 points on /r/movies.^[10]

Creepy Pumbaa

On May 30th, 2019, Seth Rogen tweeted a picture of his character, Pumbaa, with the caption "I am Pumbaa"^[11] (shown below). This was part of a series of promotional tweets from Rogen and Disney highlighting the cast of the upcoming film.^[12][13]

In response to the picture of Pumbaa, Twitter users commented on the creepiness of the character's design. Twitter user @DerfelMacGuffin tweeted that Pumbaa looked like he came from the set of the horror film The Witch, gaining over 560 retweets and 4,100 likes (shown below, left). User @pedraum_quejero parodied the promotional photo by using the caption with a picture of a creepy pig mask, gaining over 1,300 retweets and 7,200 likes (shown below, right). The jokes about Pumbaa were covered by Twitter Moments.^[14]

Search Interest

External References