The Lion Kingremains among Disney’s greatest achievements in feature-length animated movies. The 1994 classic is a favorite among many fans to this day and much of that has to do with the fantastic voice cast and very memorable songs. One of the best moments in the movie is when Scar, voiced by Jeremy Irons, sings the songBe Prepared. Now, a never-before-seen video showing the actor recording the song behind-the-scenes has arrived online.
The video comes courtesy ofEntertainment Weeklyahead of the upcoming Walt Disney Signature Collection release ofThe Lion King, which will be available on digital platforms August 15 and Blu-ray on the 29. In the video, we see Jeremy Irons singing a bit of his opening performance fromBe Prepared, which is cut together with the actual footage from the movie, giving us a cool new perspective on how things ultimately came together. We also get a brief cameo from James Earl Jones doing the voice of Mufasa in the video, as well as Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin, and Jim Cummings recording the voices of the Hyenas.
To say thatThe Lion Kingwas a successful movie would be a bit of an insult to just how well the movie did for itself at the time. To this day, it remains the third highest-grossing animated feature of all-time with $968.4 million worldwide. When adjusted for inflation it would still be king, if you will. It was also an absolute critical smash, currently sitting at a 92 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie also won Hans Zimmer on Oscar for his score and three of the songs fromThe Lion Kingwere nominated in the Best Original Song category, with ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’ taking home the Academy Award. ‘Be Prepared’ wasn’t one of the songs, but many fans of the movie will probably tell you it should have been.
Though the 1994 animated version ofThe Lion Kingstill holds up, Disney is looking to give thenext generationa version of the movie that they can call their own. Following the success of the recent live-actionThe Jungle Book, it was announced that the Mouse House is going to employ the same technology for a live-action version ofThe Lion KingwithJon Favreau directing. The movie is currently set for release onJuly 19, 2019. Some footage was recently shown at D23 that recreated the famous “Circle of Life” sequence and it was reportedly amazing. As for the cast? Disney is mostly bringing innew talent, but they are bringing back James Earl Jones to reprise his role as Mufasa.
There were rumors going around recently thatHugh Jackmanhad been cast in the role of Scar, but that report was denied by his representatives. Maybe Disney can bring back Jeremy Irons for Scar as well? Fans ofThe Lion Kingalmost certainly wouldn’t mind. Be sure to check out the new video from behind-the-scenes ofThe Lion Kingfor yourself below.
http://players.brightcove.net/219646971/default_default/index.html?videoId=5526902803001
