This article is about 2019 photo-realistic computer animated film. You may be looking for 1994 animated film of the same name..
♥
This article is dedicated to Mark Livolsi, who died in Pasadena, California, aged 56. (April 10, 1962 - September 23, 2018), and James Earl Jones, Mufasa's voice actor, died at his home in Pawling, New York, at 93. (January 17, 1931 - September 9, 2024)
The Lion King
What's the point of remaking a classic from people's childhoods in a new animation style if you end up barely doing anything new about it?
Genre:
Musical Drama
Directed by:
Jon Favreau
Produced by:
Jon Favreau Jeffrey Silver Karen Gilchrist
Written by:
Jeff Nathanson
Based on:
The Lion King by Irene Mecchi Jonathan Roberts Linda Woolverton Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff
"The Lion King (2019) is one of the most embarrassing pieces of garbage I've ever watched, and what makes it extra embarrassing is that they already had the blueprint for a great film. But unfortunately, every attempt at updating and improving upon the original only made it much, much worse."
— Adam Johnston (YourMovieSucksDOTorg)
"The new version of The Lion King was a huge disappointment to me, because I believe they messed the music up. Music was so much a part of the original and the music in the current film didn't have the same impact. The magic and joy were lost."
The Lion King is a 2019 American musical drama film directed and produced by Jon Favreau, written by Jeff Nathanson, and produced by Walt Disney Pictures. It is a photo-realistic computer-animated remake of Disney's traditionally-animated 1994 film of the same name. It premiered in Hollywood on July 9, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States on July 19, 2019.
In September 2020, it was confirmed that a follow-up film, Mufasa: The Lion King, a film that serves as both a prequel and a sequel, was in development with Barry Jenkins, the director of Moonlight, attached to direct, and is set for release on December 20, 2024.
Simba idolizes his father, King Mufasa, and takes to heart his royal destiny on the plains of Africa. But not everyone in the kingdom celebrates the new cub's arrival. Scar, Mufasa's brother — and former heir to the throne — has plans of his own. The battle for Pride Rock is soon ravaged by betrayal, tragedy, and drama, ultimately resulting in Simba's exile. Now, with help from a curious pair of newfound friends, Simba must figure out how to grow up and take back what is rightfully his.
Bad Qualities
False advertising: In possibly one of the biggest examples as such, it was advertised as a "live-action" film, but in reality is a computer-animated film with photo-realistic imagery.[3] Director Jon Favreau himself repeatedly claimed that it was live-action, before admitting that every scene is computer-animated except for only the opening live-action shot of the sun rising.[4]
Although in some respects, despite the film being animated, albeit photo-realistically, Disney refuses to call it an animated film and repeatedly markets it as if it were live-action, to the point where they submitted it as a live-action film at the Oscars and many people were surprised when it ended up in the animated category instead at the Golden Globe Awards. Many wonder if this is because Disney does not believe that audiences take the film as seriously if it is seen as a "cartoon" instead of a "real" film, despite the original being exactly that. This is especially a slap to the face as the Disney company was founded on the ambition of taking animation to a new cinematic level, which the film is also doing with photorealism technically.
Very poor and bland direction of vocal performances that comes across as one-note, with many of the actors sounding as if they were generically reading off of the screenplay much of the time (except for Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner), not even the late James Earl Jones as Mufasa seemed to be trying here, with many of his scenes including the one where his character is killed being watered down by sub-par acting from him; similarly, Donald Glover's performance as Simba sounds like as he was sleepwalking the entire time. Other examples included for other performances:
On the related subject of said Jones, it seems hypocritical for them to have him reprise his role as Mufasa but not to get any of the other voice actors from the original film such as Rowan Atkinson, Whoopi Goldberg, or Jeremy Irons; thus, it seems to be a way to pander to nostalgia for Jones for the 1990s decade. It is understandable for them to not have specific actors reprise their roles such as Jonathan Taylor Thomas when played young Simba, as he is currently far older than he was in 1994... but for the adult actors such as Jeremy Irons or Rowan Atkinson? (the blame for this has not been placed on Jones himself, as his voice has aged considerably since the original film (he was 64 when the original came out, 84 at the time of Return of the Roar, and 88 years old at the time of the remake, meaning that his very old age made his voice not as powerful as it was 25 years earlier) and the difference is very obvious due to most of his dialogue being word-for-word the same.)
John Oliver's performance as Zazu comes across as irritating and lacks the charm that Rowan Atkinson's performance as the aforementioned character had in the original film.
Some found Beyoncé as Nala to be passable if nothing special, while others found her performance was a case of Dull Surprise and made the character impossible to take seriously.
Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance as Scar sounds boring and nothing like the original film and doesn't have much of the charm of Jeremy Irons' performance as well, since Jeremy Irons' voice performance as the aforementioned character sounds much better, great, and fits the tone, as well as by far the most controversial. Some enjoyed the film's more twisted and impulsive take, while others missed the more witty and sarcastic smooth operator from the original film.
It was even a missed chance for Disney to just re-hire everyone from The Lion Guard back to reprise their characters (including Rob Lowe, Gabrielle Union, Khary Payton, David Oyelowo, Gary Anthony Williams, and Jeff Bennett), as they pull out much better performances than THIS film's cast.
The movie is rather pointless and unnecessary, since there was no reason for the film to be made in the first place other than money, as the movie's another main problem is that it is almost exactly identical to the original film in terms of the overall story and even takes some of the exact same shot-to-shots from the original film. Apparently, at one point, it further proved that Hollywood did not learn their lesson on anything about shot-to-shot remake movies after what happened with Gus Van Sant's Psycho.
Furthermore, what makes the film even more pointless and unnecessary is the fact that the original canonical continuity was still prominent through The Lion Guard as of the film's release.
Several of the changes that have been done for this remake are also either mediocre-at-best or pointless-at-worst, and specific scenes in the original film are cut for no apparent reason but to get people to watch it:
Rafiki's role, who played a significant role in guiding Simba in the original film, has been severely reduced and wasted, and he hardly appears in the film, making him underutilized.
Banzai and Ed were renamed Kamari and Azizi, respectively, despite there being no real reason other than to make them more Swahili-sounding.
Several of the additions are quite redundant, more specifically the inclusion of Timon and Pumbaa's animal friends; it could be argued that their inclusion was simply a way to reinforce Simba's time in the jungle and how he has to live Timon and Pumbaa's ways, but him being all alone in the jungle with Timon and Pumbaa and having to live their ways was already clear and meaningful enough in the original film.
Some animals that didn't appear in the original film (either appearing in later media or never appeared in the franchise at all before the remake) appear in this film. They include aardvarks, bat-eared foxes, bush babies, dragonflies, dung beetles, elephant shrews, gray crowned cranes, gray parrots, and weaver birds.
The novelization includes a talking honey badger, which did not appear in the film.
Additionally, despite the dung beetle character not having lines in the film itself, he does speak in the Pride Lands Pedia bonus feature exclusive on digital platforms and is voiced by Atticus Shaffer (who voices Ono from The Lion Guard).
In the original film, Scar verbally and physically abuses Sarabi for "not looking hard enough" for food and narrow-mindedly rejects her suggestion to leave Pride Rock. In the remake, he abuses her for refusing to be his mate and still chooses Mufasa, even after his death. The remake also implies that Scar deliberately orchestrated the Pride Lands' transformation into a wasteland by giving the hyenas first dibs over the lions on any hunts out of spite for Sarabi still refusing him in favor of Mufasa, whereas in the original film, it was simply due to Scar's incompetence in ruling the kingdom that this happened.
This could be inspired by the deleted scene of the original, where Scar wants to have Nala be his mate, but refuses, and additionally from Hamlet, one of the original film's inspirations, when the titular prince's mother becomes a reluctant queen to Claudius after he murdered his brother to take the throne.
In the original film's sequel, it is noted that a group of lionesses supported Scar during his reign, and one of their offspring was chosen by Scar to become king. In the remake, Scar's intentions to make Sarabi his queen to gain the respect of the lionesses indicate that no lionesses support him and that he is yet to have an heir if he does not have a queen.
In this film, during Mufasa's funeral, Scar claims that the hyenas will live with the lions not only to start a new age for the Pride Lands but also as "help" for Scar to reign. Additionally, both Zazu and Rafiki watch the funeral from a distance in the remake, while Rafiki watches the funeral alone in the original version, with Zazu watching it along with the lionesses.
This takes place during the day instead of at night.
The mouse Scar tried to eat appears more frequently in the film when it tries to find shelter in Pride Rock and when Scar notices it where he does not pick it up and attempts to eat it (he simply communicates with the mouse and tries to keep it in place as he did) and the mouse later appears during the end of the film among the other animals returning to Pride Rock. In the traditionally animated film, the mouse only appears at the beginning of the film and Scar grabs him and tries to eat him, but loses the mouse when Zazu distracts him.
In the original, the three hyenas (Shenzi included) refuse to go after Simba due to a field of thorns that he escaped through being too dense for them and know that he won't survive long enough in the desert, so instead lie to Scar that they killed him and if Simba returns they'll do so, whereas here Kamari and Azizi chase him off of a cliff and lazily assume that he's dead due to how high it is, and decide to lie to Shenzi that they "ate" him, and therefore tell Scar.
Besides Shenzi, Kamari, and Azizi, other hyenas took part in chasing after Simba.
One hyena fell over the cliff along with Simba, although it did not survive the fall.
The scene where Timon and Pumbaa sing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" before Nala chases them is expanded into a short musical number, assuring their fellow herbivores that everything's okay and even sings along with the duo until Nala interrupts them.
Also, the scene where Pumbaa tries to catch a rhinoceros beetle was changed to Simba trying to catch it after returning to Pride Rock after Mufasa has Zazu send him back before meeting up with Scar. The rhinoceros beetle in that same scene has the same colors as its real-life counterpart instead of being blue.
On that note, in the original film, when Timon runs over to a terrified Pumbaa after hearing the latter scream and seeing him stuck under a tree branch, Pumba yells out a very funny and classic line "SHE'S GONNA EAT ME!!!", in this version, Pumbaa never says that line even once.
In the original, Scar did not necessarily mind not having a queen, but in this film, he wants Sarabi to be his queen.
The triumphant score played over Simba racing back to Pride Rock is replaced with the song "Spirit" in the adaptation. While "Spirit" isn't all bad, it doesn't have the same triumphant tone that the original scene did.
Related to above, the scene where Nala goes to Timon and Pumbaa to ask if they know where Simba is after he goes back to Pride Rock and Rafiki telling them that the king has returned, was completely removed and replaced with the Spirit song and scene.
In the original, during the Hakuna Matata song, when Pumbaa remembers his past, in the flashback, he arrives near a river, and after drinking some water, farts and rips the grass behind him. In this movie, the scene is different: now Pumbaa is more tiny compared to how it was in the original, now is in the water and he is taking a bath. After, releases fart bubbles that scare a group of zebras and kill a butterfly. Not only does it make the scene more awkward, but the idea that Pumbaa uses his flatulence to kill other animals is also a horrible idea, as well as being an obvious rip-off of one portion of Shrek's opening scene where Shrek farts in a lake for getting a fish.
Speaking of toilet humor and farting, the scene where Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa rest at night after eating bugs is different: in the original Pumbaa burped and everyone commented on how disgusting he was, whereas now before Simba burps and said"they could be be the grasshoppers" and then Pumbaa fart and say "or the crickets" and everyone has fun. How much do you want to make a film more childish?
Scar's villain song, "Be Prepared (2019)", has been massively dumb down in the remake, as it is less of a song and more-or-less a generic sequence. They even slapped a "(2019)" on the title as well for unknown reasons.
The famous stampede scene is butchered beyond belief. To quote one comment on YouTube:
1994 — The gorge is massive enough to hold an entire city of people, like Shanghai or Lagos. There are hundreds of thousands to a couple million wildebeests stampeding through the gorge. The wildebeests are running like an unstoppable force. Scar kills Mufasa with enjoyment from the last words he whispers.
2019 — The gorge is about 1/5 the size of the original, there are only say 100,000 or so wildebeests, and they're running like they're taking a small jog. Scar rushes his dialogue, then he bitch-slaps Mufasa to his death.
In the original film, Rafiki is seen using his Bakora staff to the Pride Rock, hugging Mufasa in a very heartwarming manner, and then later when he breaks pulp from the fruit in half, which putting on baby Simba on his face, but this remake however, he doesn't use his staff, and he brings red twigs instead during the opening scene of "Circle of Life" song. He also doesn't hug Mufasa, since Rafiki only touches Mufasa's head.
One message from the original, "take responsibility for your past," along with the grassland background drop in the same scene in which it appears, has been removed in favor of a lake background drop to "find" Mufasa from there.
The relationship between Simba and Scar has been changed, and most agree it's for the worse.
In the original film, Simba loved his uncle, playing around with him and having a good time even though it was clear to the audience Scar didn't like it. It made Scar's betrayal sting because we saw that Simba was not only betrayed by family, but by someone he looked up to. Plus the fact Scar acted playful and loving added a certain amount of charm to his character while also making him even more vile, since his willingness to do so, again, was a low blow.
The remake meanwhile removes that playful relationship and makes Scar out to be very clearly not like Simba, which would be fine, but the fact Simba still follows the story the same way means it becomes harder to believe Simba would ever trust Scar. It makes the betrayal lose its impact.
Simba goes and hears his dad's voice in the clouds like in the original version, but apart from brief flashes of lightning showing the outline of Mufasa's head, it's all viewers see of him and all Simba looks at otherwise is clouds. This was done for 'realism', but viewers felt it was far less visually impressive and didn't pack as much of an emotional punch as Mufasa's spirit dramatically appearing in the night sky, especially as it's one of the most iconic scenes from the original. However, some did cite appreciating the added dialogue from Mufasa at least.
Even individual scenes from the original film seem to be pointlessly extended simply so the film would seem longer and more ambitious than it is, more specifically a few pieces of Simba's fur being blown away by the wind as it makes its way towards Rafiki.
On the topic of Nala, whereas in the original she was portrayed as a tomboy-esque sarcastic lioness with an adventurous risk-taking attitude, here she is pretty much a naggy killjoy a lot of the time, to the point where during the elephant graveyard sequence all she can do is try and urge Simba to return home; as a result, it becomes harder to relate to her when she tries to convince Simba to return to the Pride Lands, and thus more difficult to see how it is the right thing for Simba to take his place as king because his best friend sees him in such a dutiful and inconsiderate way.
Consequently, this also results in both Simba and Nala having terrible chemistry with each other in the remake, unlike their animated counterparts.
Scar's famous "it's to die for" line has been changed to "it's a gift “Mufasa will” never forget". The original line worked because of its Double Meaning that is obvious to the average viewer and not Simba. It makes the replacement seem almost nonsensical. There is no possible way Mufasa was supposed to "never forget" the "gift" if Scar was going to kill him.
Some of the scenes from the original film that are changed lose their original meaning (and thus are less meaningful than before); for example, in the original film, it was Simba's boredom and subsequent attempt to pounce a grasshopper that motivated Mufasa to teach him a "pouncing lesson" (with him essentially taking a break from listening to Zazu's morning report), which adds to the relationship between the two characters and establishes how much Mufasa cares for his son, whereas here in this film Mufasa is implied to have only did so out of boredom of listening to Zazu's morning report, and thus the scene is less meaningful in comparison to in the original. Another is the scene when Zazu alerts Scar that Mufasa is coming to confront him for not arriving at Simba's birth ceremony, in the original he mocks Scar for playing with his food before informing him about Mufasa's arrival at his cave while it didn't happen here, and when Scar was attempting to eat Zazu for annoying him, in this version Zazu informs that it was illegal for him to do so because he is the majordomo to the king.
At times, the music fails to match the intended tone of what is occurring in the scene, resulting in it feeling rather out-of-place and inconsistent; one most notable example of this is when Zazu informs Mufasa about the presence of hyenas in the Pride Lands after the pouncing lesson, during which one can hear calm and upbeat music playing, which feels out-of-place in a scene that is supposed to be urgent.
The song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" performed by Beyoncé, Donald Glover, Billy Eichner, and Seth Rogen also takes place during the day... despite the word "night" being in the song title.
It lacks the charm, originality, depth, and emotion that made the original so memorable:
Whereas the hyenas were more comedic and had plenty of goofball-esque moments in the original, here they are stripped of those and thus have much less personality and charisma.
This issue also extends to Scar, who is more miserable and gloomy as well as quite aggressive towards those around him rather than being sarcastic and sly. His new personality here is a rip-off of Metal Beak from Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, as both characters are evil, planning to fight the good guys and even have the minions as well as killed in the final battle.
Granted in the original film, Scar does have his fair share of miserable and gloomy moments, but for the most part, they were usually few and far between, and even then, Scar knew when to lighten up.
While the computer-generated imagery visuals for the animal characters visuals with the film are massively well done and lifelike since now we have the technology to make the animation look so realistic it tricks people into thinking they used real animals, the problem with the movie, however, is that none of them are worked with this film and are pretty much lifeless, with all of the characters barely showing any expression or emotion at all due to the filmmakers seeming to desperately try to make the film look as realistic as possible, further limiting the expression, considering that the photorealistic animation is restricting in a movie like this; part of the charm of works in the original canonical continuity is the magnificent and intensely expressive animation, helped by a huge range of expression, complimented by the particular character designs. Many reviews accuse it of being more of a tech demo than a movie, going out of its way to maintain the illusion that these are real animals in real settings with them never doing anything that the animals wouldn't be capable of besides talking. They also hope that now that the animation technology has been given this test run using an already popular story, it can be put to better use going forward. This is notable that not every animated film needs to be photorealistic.
Most of the musical sequences suffer from this, with the worst offender being "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" which is mostly reduced to just Simba and Nala running around for some reason, with there being an obvious lack of colorful visuals, something used in the same sequence from the original to show a visualization of Simba having a rather simplistic view of his world; "Be Prepared (2019)" has been given new lyrics, but is far too short compared to the original and as stated in Pointer 14 of the #4 segment, barely even counts as a song. It is also not performed with nearly as much gusto as the original and more of a spoken-word version rather than singing some of the lines, which left some viewers disappointed where it is also visually inferior to the original, as it is simply just Scar climbing to the top of a cliff as the hyenas watch at what is merely a dark area with a lack of smoke, geysers or fire; last, but not least, "Hakuna Matata" is just Simba, Timon and Pumbaa walking while awkwardly miming the song.
On the related topic of the said songs, there is an orchestra-like version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" performed by Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, which sounds like a failed attempt at being hip and current with the Internet, which is something the original song barely had.
Continuing the aforementioned topic of music not being able to match, in "Can You Feel the Love Tonight", the volume for the vocal performances of Donald Glover and Beyoncé sounds uneven, with the sound mixing for Glover's performance seeming to be lower whereas the one for Beyoncé's seems to be much higher.
Additionally, many species of animals in real life can express more emotions than the ones in this movie, which is simply illogical and inconsistent; this is because in comparison, the animal characters featured in every other Disney live-action film (including remake) and other non-Disney films as well, does express actual emotions, similar to real-life animals, yet the makers seemingly forgot that aspect for this film.
Scar suffers the most from this, as the realistic approach completely removes the ability to squash and stretch his facial proportions to convey his sinister nature, and ends up looking like just an ordinary lion with brown fur and a slight scar that isn't intimidating at all.
In addition, not even helping that it doesn't look too right as well when Simba is dancing in this remake. Instead, it looks more like he's readying himself for battle.
The colorful and vibrant color palette from the original film is also completely lost, resulting in this remake appearing rather drab and dull. For example: Mufasa's fur is red in the original, whereas in the remake where it changed Mufasa's fur into orange instead of red. The same can be also said for Simba.
Even the cinematography is uninspiring, there is honestly nothing much to say about it here other than how it appears to resemble Africa with computer-animated animals being pasted there.
Because of all these reasons above, this film overall looks and even feels more like as if it were from a nature documentary (like National Geographic, BBC, and Disneynature) rather than a remake of The Lion King; unironically, this was Jon Faverau's intention, as stated in one interview.
Continuing the topic of the realistic look of the film, there are at least a few instances in which the viewer can barely tell the difference between any of the lion characters, especially when all the lionesses are seen together in the same scene. Two of the most blatant examples include;
When Nala flees from Pride Rock, Sarabi says the former's name so the audience would know who the lioness who was shown leaving Pride Rock was to avoid any confusion.
The climactic battle between Simba and Scar, is nowhere near as atmospheric and/or epic as the original film.
The one scene where Mufasa is killed by Scar is not only worse than the original but also one of the most unintentionally laughable moments, as it is made to look like Scar just slapped him on the face with his paw, leaving a gash over his eye, instead of brutally tossing him off the cliff and then Mufasa fall into the wildebeest stampede, while Simba just yells "No!" with barely any visible emotion, which is the most laughable moment. Also, Scar's delivery of his famous line "Long live the king!" when he says it out loud instead of whispering it to Mufasa is rather angry, over-the-top, and bland compared to the original, where it is menacing and scary.
Plot hole: Scar sends Zazu to get the pride after convincing him that he will help Simba and Mufasa, yet he later convinces the pride that he didn't reach the gorge in time to help Simba and Mufasa. Given that Zazu still visited the pride at Pride Rock to relay information, it is unclear as to why he didn't realize this and reveal to the pride that Scar was lying.
Another plot hole is that Pride doesn't come to Simba's defense when he confesses responsibility for Mufasa's death, even after he says it was an accident that happened when he was a cub, and Scar backs Simba to the cliff of Pride Rock and gloats to him about the look in Mufasa's eyes before his death. Whereas in the original film, this was a more private conversation the others didn't hear, in the remake, once Simba turns the tables on Scar, Sarabi asks how Scar saw the look in Mufasa's eyes if he didn't make it to the gorge in time, proving that it wasn't a private conversation. The fact that Sarabi could hear Scar admit he was lying, yet didn't she try to step in sooner makes this even more baffling.
Most of the pacing is quite slow.
Sub-par dialogue, with the fact that one of Scar's lines begins with, "As you know...", is quite generic and cliché; Simba also states, "You said I could patrol with you today, and today has started," in his first scene as a cub.
Poor direction by Jon Favreau, considering how he directed much better movies, such as Iron Man, Elf, and even the Jungle Book remake.
Good Qualities
The updated songs are decent, except for "Be Prepared (2019)" performed by Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Speaking of the songs, the new song, "Spirit" performed by Beyoncé is also decent as well.
If you can hear closely, "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" takes elements from the Broadway version of the song, which is a nice touch.
The score by Hans Zimmer is also decent, although some of the tracks are superior to those in the original film.
Despite the flaws, the CGI is pretty solid, and all the main characters, along with the other animals (including some that were changed in the film) are very accurate-looking to their species. Even the animated movements for the real-life animals are tremendous.
On top of that, Pumbaa as a piglet (in this film) looks very cute.
Likewise, even though it barely showed any expression or emotion, it pulled off the idea of a realistic animal version of the original film well enough.
On that topic, five years later, Mufasa: The Lion King had more expressive emotion photo-realistic animation, and it is a massive improvement.
Baby Simba is still cute.
Decent scenery in some scenes, especially the beginning and the ending.
The fight scene is more epic, compared to the 1994 film.
The hyenas, particularly Shenzi, are more powerful, menacing, and terrifying than in the original film, despite having lost a bit of their charm; in particular, Scar's death in this film manages to be very faithful to the original but also manages to be much more terrifying than the original version, since he fights the hyenas back before being slaughtered and delivering a terrifying scream before dying.
Despite the bland and poor vocal acting, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen make for a surprisingly good vocal performance as Timon and Pumbaa, and it's great to see the late James Earl Jones reprising his role as Mufasa after 4 years of having last performed him in The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar, despite his downgrades.
All of the characters aren't flanderized and are still likable (well, except for Scar), especially with Timon and Pumbaa, though that can be because this is a shot-for-shot remake.
The logo variation from the 2016 remake of The Jungle Book, makes a return in this movie, which is a nice touch.
Despite the movie being completely unnecessary and pointless (as mentioned above in WI'sNtKoR#3, it is great to see another The Lion King movie in theaters after 25 years, and it can make people who grew up with The Lion King feel nostalgic and like a child again, though then again, that is possibly a reason why the film made so much money in the first place.
Despite the movie being completely unnecessary, it is great to see another film based on the franchise in fifteen years since 2004's The Lion King1½.
Reception
Critical response
The Lion King received generally mixed reviews from critics and fans alike, but was hated by others. It was praised for its visual effects, music, and vocal performances (particularly Rogen and Eichner), but criticized for its lack of original and facial emotion on the characters. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 52% with an average rating of 6.00/10, based on 430 reviews. The website's critical consensus read: "While it can take pride in its visual achievements, The Lion King is a by-the-numbers retelling that lacks the energy and heart that made the original so beloved--though for some fans that may just be enough.". Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 55 out of 100, based on 54 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews", and the film holds a 6.8/10 on IMDb. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, and those at PostTrak gave the film a four out of five stars.
Chris Stuckmann earned this movie a rating of C, questioning how he called it soulless.
The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes was more positive, with it currently holding an 88% rating and a 6.5 user score on Metacritic.
Box office
The Lion King opened up at #1 on its opening weekend grossing $191,770,759 domestically. The film earned $543.6 million domestically and $1.1 billion internationally; overall, it has made $1.65 billion against its $250 to $260 million budget, making it the highest-grossing animated film of all time, overtaking Frozen, despite that Disney doesn't consider the film animated, even if produced animated. It is also the second-highest-grossing film of 2019, and the seventh-highest of all time as well as large box office success.[5]
Accolades
Despite the mixed reviews, it received nominations for Best Animated Feature Film and Original Song categories at the 77th Golden Globe Awards[6], losing to Missing Link and 25th Critics' Choice Awards. It was also nominated at the 73rd British Academy Film Awards and 92nd Academy Awards[7], both for visual effects.
Upcoming follow-up film
In September 2020, it was reported that a follow-up film was in development with Barry Jenkins, the director of Moonlight, attached to direct.[8] While The Hollywood Reporter said the film would be a prequel about Mufasa during his formative years, it is reported to be about both the origins of Mufasa as well as the events after the first film, in a similar vein to The Godfather Part II. Jeff Nathanson, the screenwriter for the remake, has reportedly finished a draft.[9][10] In August 2021, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Aaron Pierre were cast, with Pierre voicing the role of Mufasa. The film will not be a remake of The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, the 1998 direct-to-video sequel to the original animated film.
This serves as the final credit for the late film editor Mark Livolsi, who died in Pasadena, California, on September 23, 2018. The film is dedicated to him.
With an estimated budget of around $260 million, it is one of the most expensive Disney remake films ever made.
Beginning on June 24, 2019 (which marked the 25th anniversary of the release of the original film), in its first 24 hours of pre-sales, The Lion King became the second-best pre-seller of 2019 on Fandango in that frame (behind Avengers: Endgame), while Atom Tickets reported it was their best-ever first-day sales for a family film.
In November, talking with ComingSoon.net, Favreau said the virtual cinematography technology he used in The Jungle Book would be used to a greater degree in The Lion King. Although some reports reported The Lion King would be a live-action film, it utilizes photorealistic computer-generated animation. Disney also did not describe it as live-action, only stating it would follow the "technologically groundbreaking" approach of The Jungle Book.
Just like The Wild, Mars Needs Moms, Planes, the Tinker Bell films, and Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas, this is one of Disney's only computer-animated feature films without Walt Disney Animation Studios or Pixar.
While the film acts as a remake of the 1994 animated film, Favreau was inspired by the Broadway adaptation of the film for certain aspects of the remake's plot, particularly Nala and Sarabi's roles.
The Lion King at the Internet Movie Database
The Lion King on Rotten Tomatoes
The Lion King on Metacritic
The Lion King on Letterboxd