Billy Eichner, Seth Rogen Eyed For Live Action ‘Lion King’ Timon and Pumbaa

I’m going to skip over my “why do you have to keep remaking every Disney movie” rant, because it’s just not going to change anything. The answer to the why is always going to be $$$. One of the films that I’ve been most skeptical about is the live action Lion King remake. Yes, Jon Favreau has proven himself on the Jungle Book remake, but this movie will go one step further. Jungle Book at least had one live action character. This “Live Action” reboot will essentially just be motion capture CG on a live action background.

One thing that has given me some hope for the film is the casting of Donald Glover as Simba and Earl Jones, who is reprising his role as Mufasa. I get why Matthew Broderick isn’t reprising his role as Simba. I’m guessing he wants no part of it. If he did, he’d be voicing the character on The Lion Guard cartoon instead of Rob Lowe. Anyways, with Jone’s entry into the cast, I was hoping that we might be bringing back as much of the stellar cast from the original film as possible. That’s why I was really surprised, when it was just announced that Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner are in final talks for the roles of Timon and Pumbaa. I was really hoping that we might see Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella also coming back to reprise their roles.

There are not any other casting announcements at this point, but there are plenty of rumors that Disney is keen on getting Beyonce’ as Nala.

Lion King hits theaters in 2019.