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Disney is making a sequel to The Lion King with the director of Moonlight

By Tim Augustin - on 30 Sep 2020, 4:11pm

Disney is making a sequel to The Lion King with the director of Moonlight

Image: Disney

Disney is keeping the gravy train rolling with these remakes.

According to a Deadline report, Walt Disney Pictures is producing a sequel to Jon Favreau’s remake of The Lion King. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, seeing as the movie grossed US$1.6 billion worldwide in 2019. 

Barry Jenkins, director of the critically acclaimed movies Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk will replace Favreau in the director’s seat for this sequel. The Lion King (2019) writer Jeff Nathanson has returned to pen a screenplay for its sequel as well. 

The sequel will continue to use the divisive photo-realistic technology used to animate The Lion King (2019). Disney hasn’t revealed details on its story yet, but Deadline reports that the sequel will delve into, “the mythology of the characters, including Mufasa’s origin story.” This likely means that we’ll see some previously-unseen backstory on pivotal characters like Mufasa and Scar. 

In a statement, Barry Jenkins said:

Helping my sister raise two young boys during the ’90s, I grew up with these characters. Having the opportunity to work with Disney on expanding this magnificent tale of friendship, love and legacy while furthering my work chronicling the lives and souls of folk within the African diaspora is a dream come true.

There is no release date for this sequel yet, but one can expect things to swing into full production soon, given how much of a cash cow these remakes have become for Disney. The next two live-action remakes from the company are The Little Mermaid and Cruella, a spin-off of 101 Dalmatians.

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