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Disney’s Live-Action Lion King Finds Its Sarabi in Alfre Woodard

L

lightskintwin

Banned
alfre_woodard_and_sarabi_-_split_-_getty_-_h_2017.jpg


The pride's all here!

Alfre Woodard is the latest to join Jon Favreau's The Lion King, voicing Sarabi, Simba's mom. Woodard joins Donald Glover as Simba and James Earl Jones, who will be reprising his role as Mufasa. Madge Sinclair voiced Sarabi in the original 1994 Disney animated version.

Seth Rogen, Billy Eichner and John Oliver will also voice parts in the feature, which recently added Chiwetel Ejiofor to its roster to play the villain, Scar.

Jeff Nathanson (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) wrote the script for Disney, with Favreau and Jeffrey Silver producing. Lion King is currently shooting in Los Angeles.

Woodard was most recently seen in the Sundance standout Burning Sands and Netflix's Marvel series Luke Cage. Up next for the Oscar nominee is the indie Saint Judy, where she stars opposite Common and Michelle Monaghan, and Clark Johnson's Juanita, where she plays the title role.
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http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...odard-cast-as-simbas-mom-disney-movie-1027011
 
A

A-V-B

Member
I haven't kept track of this, but live action? Like it's actually just humans in Africa now?

It'll become more like Shakespeare than you ever thought possible! ;)

edit: oh, voice parts. gotcha.
 
Grizzlyjin

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
But how can she be in Civil War, Mariah in Luke Cage, AND this? I'm so confused.
 
K

KeyBladerXIII

Member
zeemumu said:
SAAAARAAAABIIIIIIIIIIIII
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That played in my head the instant I saw the news, lol. Weirdly one of my favorite Scar lines.

Hopefully the role is expanded. I think she only had three scenes in the original. Letting Simba and Nala go to the water hole, getting yelled at by Scar, and recognizing adult Simba.
 
Z

zeemumu

Member
KeyBladerXIII said:
That played in my head the instant I saw the news, lol. Weirdly one of my favorite Scar lines.

Hopefully the role is expanded. I think she only had there scenes in the original. Letting Simba and Nala go to the water hole, getting yelled at by Scar, and recognizing adult Simba.
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I'm almost certain that was the only time her name was ever said onscreen
 
L

legend166

Member
Slayven said:
We are 2 movies into these disney movies, what are people not getting?
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Both those movies had humans. The Lion King will be entirely CGI characters running around heavily modified 'real life' environments. It's silly to call it live action.
 
O

Ogodei

Member
Vulcano's assistant said:
Kinda surprising they ended with such confidence in making more after how bad Maleficent turned out to be. At least they can be safe on always being able to improve over that first catastrophic misstep.
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Oddly the lesson from Maleficent was "don't try to be original" and now they're just doing practical shot-for-shot remakes of the classics (well, Jungle Book was pretty altered, but not as severely as it could have been).
 
T

Toothless

Member
I caught the original in theaters this weekend, and it punctuated just how awful an idea this is. Lion King literally takes advantage of the animation medium in every way to make it the masterpiece it is. Unlike Jungle Book or Cinderella, there's also no room for improvement at all, since it's a tight original story told by Disney.

Also, lame that Disney is keeping Rafiki a male. Changing it to a female role was the smartest thing the Broadway show did since the story is lacking in really strong female roles (and is the sole improvement you can do off the original film IMO)
 
L

lightskintwin

Banned
Toothless said:
I caught the original in theaters this weekend, and it punctuated just how awful an idea this is. Lion King literally takes advantage of the animation medium in every way to make it the masterpiece it is. Unlike Jungle Book or Cinderella, there's also no room for improvement at all, since it's a tight original story told by Disney.

Also, lame that Disney is keeping Rafiki a male. Changing it to a female role was the smartest thing the Broadway show did since the story is lacking in really strong female roles (and is the sole improvement you can do off the original film IMO)
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I'm pretty certain Nala will have a more significant role hence Disney's strong desire to recruit Beyonce for it. However I agree with you, and thought they might mirror the Broadway musical and make Rafiki female.
 
Grizzlyjin

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
Toothless said:
I caught the original in theaters this weekend, and it punctuated just how awful an idea this is. Lion King literally takes advantage of the animation medium in every way to make it the masterpiece it is. Unlike Jungle Book or Cinderella, there's also no room for improvement at all, since it's a tight original story told by Disney.

Also, lame that Disney is keeping Rafiki a male. Changing it to a female role was the smartest thing the Broadway show did since the story is lacking in really strong female roles (and is the sole improvement you can do off the original film IMO)
Click to expand...

Disney has been really good about tweaking things to balance out these remakes. Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast had a couple roles that were added to beef up the diversity. Same thing with The Jungle Book, they gave Raksha (Mowgli's mom) a lot of screentime. I bet Nala and Sarabi get much larger roles than in the animated film.
 
D

Discotheque

Banned
Toothless said:
I caught the original in theaters this weekend, and it punctuated just how awful an idea this is. Lion King literally takes advantage of the animation medium in every way to make it the masterpiece it is. Unlike Jungle Book or Cinderella, there's also no room for improvement at all, since it's a tight original story told by Disney.

Also, lame that Disney is keeping Rafiki a male. Changing it to a female role was the smartest thing the Broadway show did since the story is lacking in really strong female roles (and is the sole improvement you can do off the original film IMO)
Click to expand...

agree with you on the first part 100% but as to the second I'm pretty sure they will try to beef up the female character presence in this remake.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
Vulcano's assistant said:
Mostly animators I believe, or animation enthusiast. I'm speculating, of course, but I can imagine the endless discussion threads about it on forums that are dedicated specifically to that medium.
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These films are pretty much ground zero for a question that's only going to become more blurred. As digital enhancement on actors becomes basically universal and they keep creating humanlike characters entirely out of CG in digitally-extended sets, we're slowly reaching the point Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow heralded in which basically some of the people we see on screen and maybe some props will be tangible, and the rest is created in post.

And then a live action movie will be "live action" as much as an animated film is animated if you rotoscoped every item in it.
 
H

hipbabboom

Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
I'm very late to this news about a Live-action Lion King but how will this work? Will they be using real footage of lions, baboons, etc... or will it be like the stage play with people dressed up as anthropomorphized animals?
 
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