Yahoo Movies Fans have a mixed reaction to live action ‘The Lion King’ character posters
Woah boy. What is it about Disney’s live-action remakes that make fans want to kick-off on social media? First they turned on Will Smith’s Genie in Aladdin after the first trailer, and now they’re recoiling from Pumbaa in The Lion King in a new series of character posters.
Though, to be fair, they do have a point.
Click the image below to see all the posters in full...
The character posters show off the stunning photoreal CGI work undertaken by UK-based visual effects company MPC, showing the beloved characters of the 1994 animation reimagined as living, breathing creatures in all all their hairy glory.
However, not everyone is a fan.
I like how all the other LION KING posters just look like regular safari animals and then there’s this Stan Winston Studios-ass nightmare fuel pic.twitter.com/60vWsqKfKN
— Chris 💫 (@ChrisRogers1138) May 30, 2019
we were talking about how scary pumbaa looks in the new lion king so i uh. turned his poster into a horror movie poster pic.twitter.com/fLnDzcJKr5
— Sof 🏹 (@LobsterScoundrl) May 30, 2019
But Pumbaa’s horror movie vibes isn’t the only issue for fans, the character posters are also highlighting another issue, that this is a live-action remake without any live-action; all the characters are CGI, a situation that’s highlighted by the ads.
Disney released character posters for The Lion King like they hadn’t already hammered home the main issue with a “live action” remake pic.twitter.com/AvlXunyXBA
— Dr. Nick Riviera (@ohpencilsharp) May 30, 2019
Oh, and then there’s the fact that these lions all look, well, like lions. That’s a tricky thing to get around when most of your cast is, you know, lions.
Me trying to tell the lions apart in the new #Lionking posters pic.twitter.com/1gpNVrckoC
— Nicole Rams (@ramcambam) May 30, 2019
Hey, let’s play a little game. And no peeking at the full poster!
I cropped out the names of two characters in The Lion King posters. Guess which one’s Simba and which one’s Nala. pic.twitter.com/jWqWyWeehH— Chris ThreeLeaf (@CThreeleaf) May 30, 2019
Oh well, at least the posters have created a strong reaction, even if it’s not the kind Disney might have been hoping for.
someone please tell me why I’ve been laughing at these character posters for the live action lion king for the past 5 minutes pic.twitter.com/gEDu99GWLM
— katie🌻 (@capmadden) May 30, 2019
We’re at brunch and @TheChrisVittoe just threw his phone across the table while complaining about the Lion King character posters, so that’s how today is going.
— Jenna Anderson (@heyitsjennalynn) May 30, 2019
the lion king posters pic.twitter.com/5eOOoOKvLQ
— ally👑 (@rachqjen) May 30, 2019
The "character" posters for THE LION KING '19 are going to give me an aneurysm.
I'm sorry, there weren't nearly enough air quotes around """""character""""".— Scott Renshaw (@scottrenshaw) May 30, 2019
Still, with Aladdin going great guns at the UK box office despite the Twitter storm, Disney probably aren’t that fussed about this latest controversy. The Lion King will probably still break all known live action records next month, it’s easily the highest profile movie Disney’s given the remake treatment to.
Read more: Seth Rogen says The Lion King isn’t an identical remake
And if you’re worried that you’ll be basically be getting the same film as the original, don’t worry, Seth Rogen reassured Yahoo Movies UK that, “It’s not shot for shot, just the stuff they’ve released is like that. It’s different, and we improvised a lot.”
So that’s all right then. As long as that new stuff doesn’t include a sequence where Pumbaa goes on a murder rampage, we’ll be fine.
The Lion King will be in UK cinemas on 19 July.
