We’re only a couple of weeks away before the highly anticipated remake of The Lion King arrives on July 19 under a wave of heavy scrutiny from hordes of fans hoping it’ll live up to the original 1994 animated masterpiece.
With the finish line in sight, director Jon Favreau has decided to get the hype ball rolling even faster by releasing a bunch of new posters featuring the cast engaging in a staring contest with their characters. While we had some concerns over the previous batch of character posters, these new ones are actually pretty frigging stunning.
There’s something spine-tingling seeing Donald Glover looking at Simba and Chiwetel Ejiofor looking at Scar (sorry Jeremy Irons), but the bulk of the attention has been on Beyoncé and Nala, which is completely understandable because, well, just look at her poster and tell me she doesn’t look regal AF.
But while these character posters go a surprisingly long way in hyping up the remake, there is one important thing missing from this batch of new promo material: Where’s Mufasa?
He’s an incredibly important part of The Lion King and it feels kind of wrong to see him missing from the character poster line up.
Okay, I’m probably being too demanding here because they managed to get James Earl Jones to voice Mufasa again so that in itself is already a win. Plus the man is nearly 90 so he’s probably not too keen to be involved in a grueling photoshoot and would rather let his voice do all the talking, literally.
Now that I think about it, it’s perhaps for the best we didn’t get a Mufasa character poster. We don’t want all the newcomers getting too emotionally attached before they experience the trauma that is the stampede scene.