Released in June 1994, the film remains the highest-grossing hand-drawn animated movie ever made.
It was the No.
Favreau, 52, tells EW on set.
We’ve basically built a multiplayer VR filmmaking game just for the purposes of making this movie."
Look down and you see your VR avatar, a little green humanoid… ball… thing.
Kinetic, impulsive camerawork capturing beautifully rendered animal behavior.
An imperfect shot of perfect action.
“Virtual reality is more a tool than the end result.
But other than that, you really are doing exactly what you do when you make a movie.”
If it’s all still hard to visualize, then Favreau sayshakuna matata.
“The hope is that none of this will matter when people actually see it,” he concedes.
The thing is, you just can’t mess withThe Lion King.
Not that Favreau needed any reminding.
The trick is to quantify those things.
Figure out what those connection points are.
There’s a checklist: ‘What do I expect to see if I go see this?’
And there were about six things on that list forJungle Book."
Favreau chuckles: “This one has about 60.”
“I just wanted to be a part of a global good.”
Even the cast can’t believe the cast.
It’s a once-in-a-generation vocal quality."
The characters themselves are just as formidable as the celebrities playing them.
“Truthfully, I probably would have been a little insulted if hedidn’task me to.”
I’ve heard about some of them!"
“It’s such a great role that allows you to do so much,” says Eichner.
If you get to the soundstage and you’re thinking, ‘Oh my God, what a full-circle moment!
Nathan Lane did it originally!
Beyonce’s in this!’
then you’re paralyzed creatively.
You just have to put that out of your head to get the job done."
Favreau earmarked the film’s music as its other major arena ripe for renewal.
Zimmer, faced with reevaluating his Oscar-winning score, was initially hesitant to return.
“I have worked very hard to not ruin things through improvement,” he tells EW.
I’m being truthful to the ambitions that I didn’t quite manage to achieve the last time around.
Make it shine, make it joyful, make it emotional, make it an experience.
“We didn’t know we were working on a phenomenon,” admits Zimmer.
“But we were playing and writing about the things that mattered to us.
I am doing this strictly for the people for whom it means something.
I’m working my musicians to the bone because I want to get that performance.
I want to smell sweat and blood in this studio.”
Also, I was lying, pun was intended."
All things animal were left in the paws of Favreau’s animators.
“It was really amazing,” Glover says of the director’s techniques.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.
How he melded new and old tech was really inspiring.”
The technology just seemed so next-generation and out there.
I’m not saying it’ssubtle, but it is conversational."
Other characters needed no such reinvention.
I was like, ‘You’re Mufasa!’
“He could have just as easily said no.
His voice could have sounded different.
There’s a lot of ways this could not have worked out.
And that all of the stars aligned and there I was listening to him record…
I felt something very powerful happening.
But the intangible aftereffects of Favreau’s film stand to be just as striking.
I [know] Nala inspires little girls because that happened to me when I was younger.
I literally said that I wanted to be her.
She’s a great role model.”
The moviemaking community may also feel the floor rumbling as Favreau decisively breaks ground with new technology.
“Isn’t this how we’re supposed to spend our lives?
“Since we didThe Lion Kingthe first time, look how the music business has fallen apart.
We’re never going to get our six-platinum album for this anymore.
We’re truly not doing it for the money.
We’re not doing it for the record sales.
We’re doing it because wehave to.
Because we have to give back to this audience that has supported this story all these years.”
Ahh, there’s that elephant.
