The Lion King (1994) vs. The Lion King (2019)

Annotated Bibliography
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• Tim Dirks article on, “The History of Film: The 1990s” mentions the economic standing movies had in the United States while noting the remarkable increasing prosperity of the industry. Dirk mentions that, “for the most part, cinema attendance was up… throughout the country.” At time the United States was bouncing back from the 1990-1991 economic recession, by 1993 the industry was still on a successful track record of making multi-million-dollar movies. The film industry was successful in racking up close to over $5.3 billion dollars alone in 1993 and continues to dominate the box-office in current times.

Dirks, T. (n.d.). The History of Film The 1990s The Era of Mainstream Films and "Indie" Cinema, the Rise of Computer-Generated Imagery, the Decade of Re-makes, Re-releases, and More Sequels . Retrieved October 5, 2019, from https://www.filmsite.org/90sintro.html.

Domestic Movie Theatrical Market Summary 1995 to 2019. (n.d.). Retrieved October 5, 2019, from https://www.the-numbers.com/market/.

Social History: 

• In Chaim Gartenberg’s article, “The Lion King remake is the biggest animated earner ever, but Disney claims it isn’t”, Gartenberg mentions that the Jon Favreau remake of the original 1994 film, “The Lion king” generated $1.3 billion worldwide which in contrast is close to a quarter of the total amount of money the movie industry generated in the year 1994 alone. Again, this number beats Disney’s top earner, “Frozen” which was the top-grossing animated film of all time until the revival of what was once known to be Disney’s top grossing film. However, interestingly enough Disney refuses to recognize their remake as the biggest animated film ever over Frozen. In reality, Disney considers “The Lion King” not an animated movie but refers to it as a “live-action” film. In retrospect this means that yes, the remake accomplished their goal in generating revenue… however, Disney’s main concern is geared towards keeping their new line of movies separate from the animated genre. When asked about calling the film “live-action”, Favreau responded saying that, “but to say its animated, I think, is misleading as far as what the expectations might be.” Jon Favreau mentions that since there are no actual animals being used and no real camera for recording performance then this product of the “hands of artists” is misleading in calling it animated. Especially, when regarding the stigmatism in the film industry of wanting to preserve the live-action movies as a new creature aside from animated films. Gartenberg points out that the company wants to, “emphasize the perceived superiority of its new photorealistic CGI technology by avoiding even calling it animated at all.” The issue regarding the categorization of Disney’s reboot is meaningless because the company succeeds in producing an award-winning film while also reestablishing their “intimidating power at the box office” as Gartenberg refers to it.

Gartenberg, C. (2019, August 12). The Lion King remake is the biggest animated earner ever. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/12/20802717/lion-king-live-action-animated-remake-biggest-film-of-all-time-disney-debate.

• In Zacharek Stephanie’s analysis of Disney’s “The Lion King”, Stephanie points out the evolution of movie making while also explaining Disney’s trend in remaking once known “megahits” and bringing them out once again to the big-screen. Jon Favreau’s (2019) interpretation of Roger Allers “The Lion King” (1994) is quite remarkable given the amount of technological and cinematic evolution over the past 25 years. Stephanie further mentions that the advance from animated movies to “life-like” movies will alter the way you perceive Jon Favreau’s interpretation of “The Lion King”. This also has to do with the emotional connection Disney already established with the original 1994 film. 

Zacharek, S. (2019). Disney Keeps Remaking Itself. Is That So Bad? TIME Magazine, 194(4), 55–57. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=137583330&site=eds-live&scope=site