Sun Rises On New ‘Lion King’ Footage From Disney – CinemaCon

As anticipation builds for this summer’s release of Jon Favreau’s CGI/live-action The Lion King, Disney dropped a new clip from the film at CinemaCon today. In the footage, a young and playful Simba hops on his sleeping parents, not so subtly trying to wake them and greet the morning.

Looking out on stunningly rendered vistas awash in sunrise, James Earl Jones’s Mufasa tells his young cub, “Look, Simba, everything the light touches is our Kingdom.” One day, he says, “the sun will set on my time here and will rise with you as the new king. It will be yours to protect.” (Those same lines are heard in the teaser that was dropped in November, but today’s footage was new.)

The clip showed off Mufasa’s lighter side too as he and Simba plot to prank John Oliver’s chattering hornbill Zazu.

Lion King follows Favreau and Disney’s blockbuster collaboration on The Jungle Book which went on to gross $967M worldwide in 2016, and all signs point to this film being a global phenomenon. It builds on the Mouse’s success of updating and reinventing its classics for a contemporary audience (despite the recent Dumbo fumble).

When the teaser was released in November, it became the studio’s then-biggest bow ever and the No. 2 most-viewed from any studio of all time.

A beloved — and lucrative — property, The Lion King was originally released in 1994 and is one of the highest-grossing animated films of all time with a lifetime global box office of $968.8M. It won Academy Awards for Elton John and Tim Rice’s original song, “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and Hans Zimmer’s original score. It also nabbed two Grammy Awards, with the soundtrack selling over 14M copies. In 2011, it was re-released in a 3D version which made $94M.

International rollout on Lion King begins July 17 with domestic opening July 19.