The Walt Disney company has made a major announcement: They like making money. With that in mind, they have officially confirmed that they have put a live-action adaptation of The Lion King on the fast-track.
This past spring saw the enormous success of the live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book – one of our favorite movies of the year so far – which has served as the latest crowning success for the Mouse House. The movie was directed by Iron Man’s Jon Favreau and to date has grossed over $965 million dollars worldwide, while enjoying a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So, bringing back the director for the remake of The Lion King is a natural progression and surely they are hoping to reach even greater heights
The company has made its own sub-genre of movies by looking inward at their own library of classic (yet arguably outdated) animated films and adapting them for live-action. Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella were huge moneymakers for the studio, with the former grossing over a billion dollars. The ingredients are there for the movie to become one of the biggest movies of all-time. That is an opportunity that is too good for any studio to pass up on.
Official Press Release:
The Lion King builds on Disney’s success of reimagining its classics for a contemporary audience with films like Maleficent, Cinderella, and The Jungle Book. The upcoming Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson as Belle, is already one of the most anticipated movies of 2017. Like Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King will include songs from the animated film. Disney and Favreau are also in development on a sequel to The Jungle Book. No release date has been announced for either film.
The Lion King (1994) is one of the biggest animated films of all time with a lifetime global box office gross of $968.8 million, including $422.8 million domestically. It won Academy Awards for the original song “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” (Elton John, Tim Rice) and original score (Hans Zimmer), plus two Grammy Awards, with the soundtrack selling over 14 million copies. In 1997, the stage production The Lion King made its Broadway debut, winning six Tony Awards; 19 years later, it remains one of Broadway’s biggest hits alongside several other productions running around the world, including London, Hamburg, Tokyo, Madrid, Mexico City, Shanghai, and North America. Translated into eight different languages, its 23 global productions have been seen by more than 85 million people across every continent except Antarctica. The Lion King’s worldwide gross exceeds that of any film, Broadway show or other entertainment title in box office.
The Lion King does not have a release date currently.
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Source: Disney