Ask anyone to name their favorite song from The Lion King and they’ll likely choose one of four options: “Can You Feel The Love Tonight?,” “Hakuna Matata,” “I Just Can’t Wait to be King,” and “Circle of Life.”
They’re the four pillars of Hans Zimmer and Elton John’s original, time-honored soundtrack, and the latter has now confirmed that they’ll be featured in Disney’s upcoming live-action reboot…along with an original song or two from Beyoncé and John himself.
But can fans expect any other tracks from the 1994 animated classic to be used here? After all, there are many other memorable tunes from The Lion King aside from just those 4 which we mentioned above – “Be Prepared,” anyone? – and they’d surely translate well to live-action. Unfortunately, however, it sounds like the producers aren’t interested in anything else.
Speaking to The Sun recently, John revealed as much, saying:
There’s going to be four of our songs in the film, from the original: Can You Feel The Love Tonight? Hakuna Matata, I Just Can’t Wait To Be King and Circle of Life. And then there will be an end, closing song, and we’ve been speaking to Beyonce’s people and hopefully Tim and I and her can cook up something. That’s going out in 2019 as well. And it will be great to work with her. So we will see.
While it’s obviously great to hear that songs like “Circle of Life” and “Hakuna Matata” will remain, it’s sure to disappoint many that most of the original soundtrack has been cut. Still, like we said above, John and Beyoncé are composing new music for the film, so hopefully they come up with a few classics of their own.
Casting-wise, there’s much to look forward to with The Lion King, as the aforementioned Beyoncé and James Earl Jones (Star Wars) have signed on to voice Nala and Mufasa, respectively, while Chiwetel Ejiofor is poised to take point as the villainous Scar. And it gets even better, as Donald Glover (Atlanta, Solo: A Star Wars Story) will headline Disney’s rebooted fairytale as Simba, the lion who would be king.
That’s one heck of a line-up, and we can’t wait to see them all in action when Jon Favreau and Co. officially invite moviegoers onto the Pride Lands when The Lion King roars into theaters on July 19th, 2019.
