The circle of life — or in this case, Hollywood — has come back around again to The Lion King, Buy Now that’s getting a live-action remake helmed by Buy Now director Jon Favreau. The filmmaker recently revealed the first two actors joining the film’s cast, and much like the voice cast for The Jungle Book, the studio is looking to some familiar faces (and voices) to bring the story to life.
Buy Now and Buy Now actor Donald Glover will voice the young lion Simba in the film, with Star Wars franchise actor James Earl Jones reprising his role from the original 1994 film as the voice of Simba’s father, Mufasa.
Favreau made the casting announcements on Twitter, posting a pair of photos featuring the actors and indicating which characters they’ll be playing in the film.
I just can’t wait to be king. #Simba pic.twitter.com/wUYKixMBJI
— Jon Favreau (@Jon_Favreau) February 18, 2017
Looking forward to working with this legend. #Mufasa pic.twitter.com/1LszbWrcYT
— Jon Favreau (@Jon_Favreau) February 18, 2017
Directed by Favreau from a script penned by Buy Now and Buy Now screenwriter Jeff Nathanson, The Lion King continues the studio’s push to turn its classic animated movies into live-action movies. The strategy has proven successful so far, with 2010’s Buy Now earning more than $1 billion worldwide, 2015’s Buy Now generating $543 million, and the aforementioned The Jungle Book topping out at just over $966 million.
The live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast arrives in theaters March 17 and stars Emma Watson, Luke Evans, and Dan Stevens.
The 1994 animated version of The Lion King cast Matthew Broderick as the voice of Simba, and earned more than $968 million during its 26-week run in theaters, making it one of the highest-grossing animated features of all time. It also received four Academy Award nominations, with three of the songs from the film nominated in the “Best Original Song” category and Hans Zimmer’s score for the film also nominated. The film won Academy Awards for Elton John and Tim Rice’s song “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and also took home the award for Zimmer’s score.
There’s currently no release date set for The Lion King, but Glover will likely begin working on the project after he finishes filming on the upcoming, still-untitled Star Wars spinoff movie focusing on Han Solo. Glover portrays a young Lando Calrissian in the film, taking on the role previous played by Billy Dee Williams in 1980’s Buy Now .
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?