10 Things We Want To See From Disney's Live-Action The Lion King
6. A Darker Tone
Favreau needs to delve deeper into the classic tale and to convey a darker sense of danger that’s in keeping with modern cinematic trends. However, for it to still be The Lion King, it’ll need to find a way of maintaining all the fun of the animated classic.
We saw with the likes of Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and the James Bond movies, each franchise growing progressively darker in tone in order to satisfy the wants of contemporary audiences. Favreau recognised this when he made The Jungle Book, finding a murkier shade to Rudyard Kipling’s famed fable, while still preserving all the fun of the original to evoke nostalgia.
Idris Elba’s Shere Kahn was aptly terrifying, and a similar treatment with Scar could help achieve a darker tone. Similarly, really elevating the function of the hyenas would be a natural way of finding a more sinister shade to the original.