Watch: The Lion King – original vs remake | Little White Lies

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Watch: The Lion King – orig­i­nal vs remake

14 Sep 2020

Words by Leigh Singer

A large male lion with a majestic orange mane set against a dramatic, rocky background.
A large male lion with a majestic orange mane set against a dramatic, rocky background.
Our Remake/​Remodel series con­tin­ues with a break­down of Disney’s most suc­cess­ful live-action” update yet.

Disney’s trend of live-action ver­sions of their famous ani­mat­ed hits has accel­er­at­ed in the past few years. Almost all are explic­it­ly mod­elled on their ear­ly coun­ter­parts, yet none have been as tech­ni­cal­ly dis­sim­i­lar and yet so aes­thet­i­cal­ly indebt­ed to their pre­vi­ous iter­a­tion as The Lion King.

In the lat­est part of our Remake/​Remodel video essay series, Leigh Singer takes a foren­sic look at 2019’s The Lion King, not­ing the var­i­ous ways it adheres to and devi­ates from the tried-and-test­ed for­mu­la that saw Disney’s box office sky­rock­et in the ear­ly to mid 1990s.

But is Jon Favreau’s com­mer­cial­ly suc­cess­ful update a cut­ting-edge makeover or cyn­i­cal mar­ket­ing ploy? Watch the full video below and be sure to sub­scribe to our YouTube chan­nel for more.

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