The Lion King Tickets Now on Sale

As promised by Disney on Sunday night, tickets for the re-imagining of The Lion King are now on [...]

By Cameron Bonomolo

As promised by Disney on Sunday night, tickets for the re-imagining of The Lion King are now on sale. A remake of the 1994 animated original that starred Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons and James Earl Jones, The Lion King again follows Simba (Donald Glover) as a runaway who returns to the Pride Lands to take his rightful place as king following the death of his father (James Earl Jones).

The film doesn't arrive in theaters until July 19th, but you can purchase your tickets now. Click here to grab your seats through Fandango, or here to buy them from Atom Tickets.

"It feels like we're restoring a classic historic architectural landmark — how do you update it without changing the personality of it? How do you take advantage of all the new technological breakthroughs but still maintain the soul and the spirit of the original Lion King?" director Jon Favreau told EW.

"I think this film is a culmination of all the live-action adaptations that Disney has done of their animated classics. The idea of taking these characters and this music, just as the stage play took it, sticking closely to the story but reinventing it for a different medium… I thought that this technology would be separate enough from the animated film that it felt fresh and new, yet completely related to the original. And by the time Jungle Book was done, we had a lot of facility with this technology, so you're hitting that part of your stride where you're saying, 'Now, what can I really do with this?'"

The wholly-animated Lion King was realized using groundbreaking virtual reality technology that makes it a "virtual production." Because the technology is so advanced, visual effects supervisor Rob Legato doesn't consider Favreau's version to be an "animated movie."

"The whole reason for all of this is to make an animated film feel live-action — to have a real crew come in, interface with an animated film, and make all the camera decisions that you would on set, instead of somebody sitting at a keyboard programming in the camera moves," Favreau said.

"If you look at the way we're covering and cutting [the animated performances], all of that is related to traditional cinema."

Despite its complicated digital trickery, Favreau hopes that "none of this will matter when people actually see it."

"We hope it will feel like something different and something that's as emotionally engaging as a film with real animals using real cameras," Favreau said. "And as we introduce the material to people, they'll begin to understand — or at least be confused in a way that's creatively compelling."

Starring Donald Glover, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Seth Rogen, Billy Eichner, John Oliver, John Kani, Eric Andre, Florence Kasumba, Keegan-Michael Key, Alfre Woodard, and James Earl Jones, The Lion King opens July 19.

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