Jon Favreau Reveals Beyoncé Wrote New Song for The Lion King
With tickets now officially on sale for The Lion King here at Fandango, we spoke exclusively with director Jon Favreau, who has followed up his work helming the 2016 live-action redo of The Jungle Book with another groundbreaking effort here. He tells us how the highly anticipated new version is different while still honoring both the original movie and the iconic stage adaptation, the challenges of accomplishing such changes, and how the casting bridges the various versions and generations. And yes, he lost his mind over learning Beyoncé would be involved.
Fandango: Beyoncé is obviously a big deal for this movie.
Jon Favreau: Yes.
Fandango: I read that you wanted her involved so bad you were willing to work around her schedule. Did you have to coordinate much in that regard?
Jon Favreau: Sure, she's very busy. She's doing a lot. She was directing Homecoming, making Lemonade, her family got larger while we were working together. And between touring and albums, she really has a prolific career in many areas. She's an artist and a singer and a performer and very involved. She has a lot of things going on. But she's incredibly engaged and committed, and so what was wonderful was that when we did get together to work, she was exceptional, as you can imagine in her performance, but also really gives everything a lot of thought. She's very hard-working and puts a lot of thought into things, and would often be so extremely well-prepared that she was clearly working on a lot on this even when we weren't together.
Fandango: Beyoncé is obviously a big deal for this movie.
Jon Favreau: Yes.
Fandango: I read that you wanted her involved so bad you were willing to work around her schedule. Did you have to coordinate much in that regard?
Jon Favreau: Sure, she's very busy. She's doing a lot. She was directing Homecoming, making Lemonade, her family got larger while we were working together. And between touring and albums, she really has a prolific career in many areas. She's an artist and a singer and a performer and very involved. She has a lot of things going on. But she's incredibly engaged and committed, and so what was wonderful was that when we did get together to work, she was exceptional, as you can imagine in her performance, but also really gives everything a lot of thought. She's very hard-working and puts a lot of thought into things, and would often be so extremely well-prepared that she was clearly working on a lot on this even when we weren't together.