By MARK O’CALLAGHANStaff Writer
Disney continues to break records as “The Lion King” teaser was debuted during the Redskins vs. Cowboys game on Thanksgiving. The teaser broke the record for most views in 24 hours.
“To our entire pride: Thank you for helping the teaser trailer for The Lion King become the most-viewed Disney trailer debut ever as it reached a record-breaking 224.6 million global views in 24 hours!” tweeted by the official “Lion King” account on Twitter.
In the top ten list of most trailer views in a day, Disney holds seven spots on the list. While “The Lion King” has the most views on a teaser, the first trailer for “Avengers: Infinity War” is on top with 230 million views. Other Disney films included the remake of “Beauty and the Beast,” “Thor: Ragnarok,” “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and “Incredibles 2.”
The teaser featured the return of James Earl Jones as the voice of Mufasa narrating the teaser, retelling the “everything the light touches” speech. It cuts to snippets of a stunning recreation of the “Circle of Life” scene and then revealing the star power by showing only just their names.
Reception has been overwhelmingly positive for the teaser as it shows off incredible effects and brings back nostalgia feelings from the original film. Although, there has been a backlash because it’s an unnecessary film as it’s a remake and the movie is all CGI.
Now we don’t know how similar the movie will be to the original as they haven’t announced any big changes to the story. The teaser is the only footage that’s out and all it shows is a recreation of the original. People that it’s unnecessary as the movie is only here to make money and doesn’t credit the original animators who worked countless hours to make the movie.
“The ability to re-create anything and re-create it faithfully is the future of cinema. You shouldn’t be aware that we were using a computer to make the movie” says Rob Legato, the main aminator.
Despite some backlash, “The Lion King” is set to be one of 2019’s biggest movie. Jon Favreau, the director of “The Jungle Book” will be helming the project. He’ll be using a similar technique for making everything as realistic as possible with CGI. Even know that movie took place in India, it was made entirely in Los Angeles. The big difference with the making of “The Lion King” is there’s no human characters to interact with the animation.
The franchise is a big one as the original film was the number one animated film at one time. It stemmed of into direct to dvd sequels, tv shows and a very successful broadway musical that has critical acclaim. With this nostalgia feeling behind the movie, it’s set to have a successful run at the theatres.
“The Lion King” is scheduled for theaters on July 19, 2019.
