Sep 28, 2016

Make it right: Disney is doing an animated remake of "The Lion King" rather than live-action

Following the successful remake of The Jungle Book, Disney announced this morning that it is putting a “new reimagining of The Lion King on the fast track to production.”

The entertainment conglomerate has enlisted Jungle Book director Jon Favreau to produce the film using a similarly-styled photoreal CGI-animation approach.

Other media who have reported on the news, including entertainment media like Variety, LA Times, Deadline, Cinema Blend, and Hollywood Reporter, have inaccurately described the film as a “live-action” film.

In fact, Disney itself made no indication that the film was live-action in its press release, only saying that it would follow Jungle Book's “technologically groundbreaking” approach, which as we know, was animated:

As a reminder, here's how the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences defines an animated feature:

Based on our knowledge of how The Jungle Book was produced, it easily qualifies as an animated features under the Academy's definition, even accounting for the fact that there's a single live actor in a starring role. Now, take The Lion King which doesn't even have any human actors in the original 1994 film. If it uses similar production methods to Jungle Book-and Disney has indicated it will-it is simply not possible to describe the film as a live-action project.

The animation community is already pointing out the media's misrepresentation of the project. Let's hope that by the time the film hits theaters, the entertainment press will have learned the difference between animation and live-action. Come on guys, it shouldn't be this hard!

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(Lion photo by wwarby, CC BY 2.0)