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Earlier reports also hinted at Beyoncé as Nala, but scheduling conflicts may have prevented her from signing onto “The Lion King” remake.
![john oliver zazu john oliver zazu](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Db3onMGkLSo/maxresdefault.jpg)
The talk show host will be joining the already-confirmed cast members: Donald Glover as Simba, James Earl Jones reprising his role as Mufasa, and Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen as Timon and Pumbaa. However, neither Disney nor Oliver’s reps have commented on the report. In the original 1994 animated movie, Zazu was voiced by Rowan Atkinson (aka Mr. In a report by The Wrap, the studio has officially cast former “The Daily Show” host and correspondent John Oliver as the voice of Zazu, the ever-loyal royal advisor to Mufasa and subsequently, Simba. (Jeff Nathanson gets a solo writing credit but scene-to-scene the film hues extremely close to the original.) There’s a sound case to be made that the tale, which has been running on Broadway for more than 20 years, needs little revision.Rowan Atkinson as Zazu in The Lion King (1994). Oliver also added that he thinks his casting as Zazu is both ideal and perfect. Yet the degree to which this “Lion King” mimics the first is disappointing. The Only Royalty John Oliver Recognizes Is His Lion King Co-Star. That doesn’t stop an army of top craft professionals and an enviable voice cast from doing their best to inject some vitality into “The Lion King.” The familiar songs by Elton John and Tim Rice are back, along with a new tune by Rice and Beyonce, though this time, the score by Hans Zimmer, with Lebo M., feels more airy and buoyant. It’s worth asking: Just how real do we need our talking animals? Do we need the feathered majordomo Zazu (voiced by John Oliver) to look enough like a red-billed hornbill to win the approval of avid birders? “The Lion King” may well be a pivotal stepping stone toward CGI splendors to come, but for now, it feels like realism has been substituted for enchantment. (Think of how closely fused Tom Hanks is with Woody in the “Toy Story” movies.) Here, most of the starry voice actors (including Donald Glover as the grown-up lion prince Simba, Beyonce as the older lioness Nala and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the villainous Scar) feel remote from their characters. Largely lost are the kinds of characterization that can flow from voice actor to animation. By turning the elastic, dynamic hand-drawn creations of Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff’s 1994 original into realistic-looking animals, “The Lion King” has greatly narrowed its spectrum of available expressions. Political commentator, comedian and talk show host John Oliver is voicing Zazu in Disney’s remake of the 1994 film The Lion King. And the grass stalks of the pride lands shimmer in the African sunlight.īut it’s a hollow victory. BigLive is Video on demand service, where you can watch movies online, stream at DVD quality with no ad breaks.HBO, Home Box Office. John Oliver says his The Lion King character Zazu loves structure.
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Mufasa, the lion king voiced again by James Earl Jones, is wondrously regal, and his mane might be the most majestic blonde locks since Robert Redford. Some of the computer-generated makeovers are beautiful. It’s an impressive leap in visual effects, which included Favreau, cinematographer Caleb Descehanel and VFX chief Rob Legato making use of virtual-reality environments. The Disney worlds of cartoon and nature documentary have finally merged. The most significant overhaul to an otherwise slavishly similar retread is the digital animation rendering of everything, turning the film’s African grasslands and its animal inhabitants into a photo-realistic menagerie. And, well, Beyonce’s in it.Īnd yet Jon Favreau’s “The Lion King,” so abundant with realistic simulations of the natural world, is curiously lifeless. In the case of “The Lion King,” the songs are still good, the Shakespearean story still solid. It’s easy to greet these remakes both cynically and a little eagerly. Don’t count on a new “Song of the South,” but much of the Disney library will soon have been outfitted with digital clothes for the Internet era. The remakes have themselves been a mixed bag offering some combination of modern visual effects, fresh casting and narrative tweaks to catch up more dated material to the times. John Oliver as Zazu (Photo: YouTube/Disney + LastWeekTonight) If you are familiar with John Oliver’s shenanigans in Last Week Tonight, you’d know how he is the perfect fit for voicing the ever. Life moves in a circle, “The Lion King” tells us, and, increasingly, so does studio moviemaking.Ĭlose on the heels of “live-action” remakes of “Aladdin” and “Dumbo” and on the precipice of a reborn “The Little Mermaid,” “The Lion King” is back, too.