Of all the voice actors bringing characters to life in the brand new version of The Lion King, no name is bigger than that of Beyonce. She's one of the biggest names on the planet, and getting her to join the cast was a huge get for Disney. Having said that, the character has largely been in the background of the marketing up to this point.
However, a new video allows Beyonce's Nala to take center stage. We get the best look at the character so far and get to finally hear her for the very first time. Check it out in the video below.
While we've seen a couple shots of Nala in the official trailers, this is our best look at the character yet. We even see Nala actually speak the name Simba, something we've seen surprisingly little of in the marketing, as almost all character dialogue has been in the form of off-screen voice over.
Beyond that, the new video doesn't show us a great deal we haven't seen before. The new Lion King still looks like like it is very much going to follow the animated original quite closely. Although, it's possible that there are significant differences that are being kept out of the marketing.
While The Lion King is one of DIsney's most popular animated films, and the new remake seems destined to be a massive hit, one certainly has to wonder if there are some who are most interested in the new movie because Beyonce happens to be in it. Not only will she voice the character, but, one assumes that she'll also do some singing. One doesn't cast Beyonce in a musical and then not get her to do what she's known for.
Most of the Disney remakes of musicals have included brand new music and while we haven't heard much about that with The Lion King, it wouldn't shock me if there was a new Nala song somewhere in the movie, or at the very least, a new Beyonce tune to play over the closing credits.
Disney has been doing quite well with the remakes of the animated classics overall and while Dumbo's debut earlier this year probably wasn't what the studio was hoping for, Aladdin's box office has been much more in line with expectations. Based on its success, one can easily assume that The Lion King, a movie that did a lot better than Aladdin in animated form, is going to improve on the live-action version in roughly the same way.
Disney could very easily have its second billion dollar movie of the year in The Lion King. The original film came up just short of that number back in the 1990s, a remarkable feat for the era, and with the growth of the international box office since then, anything less would honestly be a little surprising.
With just a little over a month to go before release, expect The Lion King hype to get only bigger from here, even from those people who aren't massive Beyonce fans.
