In case you didn’t realise it, Disney are on a bit of a roll with their current spate of live-action remakes of classic fairy-tales.
Beauty & The Beast is currently sitting pretty just over $760 million worldwide after only two weeks, but that is far from the extent of the success story.
The 2010 remake of Alice In Wonderland made $1.025 billion. Oz: The Great & Powerful banked $493 million when it was released in 2013. Maleficent clocked up over $758 million back in 2014. The 2015 remake of Cinderella made $543 million. Last year’s The Jungle Book cashed in $966 million around the world.
The director of The Jungle Book is currently working on its sequel which is due for release in 2019, but he will be working on it back-to-back with the recently announce Lion King remake.
We’ve already talked about how Community and Atlanta star Donald Glover will be playing the movie’s lead Simba, while James Earl Jones will be reprising the role of Simba, but now Variety is reporting that the director is looking for Beyonce to play the role of Nala in the upcoming remake.
Clip via Douglas Roth
This would be Beyonce’s first movie role since lending her voice to the 2013 animated movie Epic, and her first on-screen role (if you can ever call it that?) since 2009’s Obsessed.
There is no set release date for the new version of The Lion King, with early estimates aiming it towards Christmas 2020.
In the meantime, there’s still plenty more fairy-tales getting the remake treatment, such as Mary Poppins (due this Christmas), Mulan (due late 2018), The Little Mermaid (TBD), Cruella De Vil (with Emma Stone as the 101 Dalmatians villain), Aladdin (from the director of Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels), Dumbo (starring our own Colin Farrell) and Pinocchio (rumoured to feature Robert Downey Jnr).
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