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 from Beyoncé and John himself.
The iconic pop singer and former Kingsman star spoke to The Sun (h/t The Independent), and revealed that he’s met with Queen B about scoring some new music for the Jon Favreau feature.
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.
That’s exciting in and of itself, though fans shouldn’t expect any further details on Elton John and Beyoncé’s new track until later in the year. The Lion King is still deep in production, after all, as Jon Favreau (Iron Man) begins to channel the magic of his own live-action rendition of Jungle Book.
In doing so, he’s cast Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and James Earl Jones (Star Wars) as Nala and Mufasa, respectively, while Chiwetel Ejiofor is poised to take point as the villainous Scar. It gets better, too, as Donald Glover (Solo: A Star Wars Story) will headline Disney’s rebooted fairytale as Simba, the cub who would be king.
The Mouse House and Jon Favreau will beckon viewers onto the Pride Lands when their Lion King reboot roars into theaters on July 19th, 2019.