'The Lion King' Director Jon Favreau On Giving His Version A Documentary Feel, The Challenges Of Expectations, And Much More [Set Visit Interview]

Much of the work of filming The Lion King was done in virtual reality, with Favreau and collaborators like cinematographer Caleb Deschanel donning headsets, scouting digital locations for the perfect shot, and filming scenes with loosely rendered animated characters in the virtual world before sending them off to be finalized by the visual effects vendors. (We'll detail exactly how that process works in our full set visit piece, so keep an eye out for that.) Favreau, who comes from a traditional filmmaking background, spent much of the shoot chasing moments that felt natural and almost accidental, as opposed to shots that were perfectly crafted.

"What we're trying to do is, just like motion capture tries to get anomalies of performance, what we're trying to get is anomalies of photography," he said. "So if Caleb is communicating to someone operating a crane or a dolly, there's going to be a little bit of an interplay, almost like musicians working together, where the dolly might move too fast, or faster in one take. So we have to back pan a little bit, or a happy accident happens. And all those little subtleties actually – it's not anything I think anyone would notice consciously, but between the quality of the rendering and the techniques we're using, it starts to hopefully feel like you're watching something that's not a visual effects production, but something where you're just looking into a world that's very realistic and emotionally feels as realistic as if you're watching live creatures.

"And that's kind of the trick here, because I don't think anybody wants to see another animated Lion King, because it still holds up really, really well. But what gave me some encouragement was the work we were able to do on Jungle Book. I saw it as a great opportunity to springboard, refine the tools, and do this process for this. But also, seeing the animated film and then seeing the stage production as being able to exist with very close storylines and with much of the same music, and of course different people playing the characters in the different medium, but they're not seen as redundant. People will go see the stage show, and they'll also see the movie, and you could love both of them and see them as two different things. The challenge here, and I think what we laid out for ourselves as a goal, is to create something that feels like a completely different medium than either of those two, and so it could stand as yet a third way of telling this story. And fortunately, the music's really emotional and strong and wonderful, and we have great singers here to reinterpret those songs, so that helps freshen it up a bit.

"And also, using these techniques and really making the visual effects department a creative partner from the inception allows us to present visual effects, I think, hopefully, in a way that you haven't seen it before. So, just the spectacle of it, of if we can present something that looks like a BBC documentary on top of telling the story, and having those two exist together. The little bits that we've seen of it feels really encouraging and exciting and fun, and it's nice to, whatever it is, twenty years later, tell a story that still feels very relevant and music that really holds up to a new generation and introduce kids to it. And take full advantage of what's available on the big screen and make a case for people to actually go to the movie theater. That's something else I think that wasn't part of the equation when I started in movies. But now you've got to convince people that they shouldn't sit home and watch the great television that's on, or the show they want to binge. It's like having a restaurant: if you've got good food at home, you better make [going out] an event."

One of the most jaw-dropping aspects of our set visit included a quick trip to a screening room, where they showed us a simple test shot of Rafiki, one of the movie's supporting characters, just sitting and looking at the camera. He didn't speak – he just breathed, blinked, and moved around a bit – but it was completely mesmerizing and totally indistinguishable from an actual nature documentary. The uncanny valley may not have been traversed when it comes to generating convincing humans on screen (cough, Grand Moff Tarkin, cough) but this test footage proved that the gap has been closed when it comes to creating believable, lifelike animals on screen.

When Favreau directed The Jungle Book in 2016, it was easy for media outlets to refer to it as "the live-action Jungle Book" because he did actually shoot live-action footage of actor Neel Sethi as Mowgli and incorporated that into digital environments. But this version of The Lion King doesn't have any live-action footage at all, so how should it be categorized? Even Favreau himself doesn't know the answer to that question.

"Well, it's difficult because it's neither, really. It depends what standard you're using. Because there's no real animals and there's no real cameras and there's not even any performance that's being captured that's underlying data that's real. Everything is coming through the hands of artists. But to say it's animated I think is misleading as far as what the expectations might be. And it also changes the way you sit and watch it. Because hopefully, you could just watch it without it being introduced. If we put up that Rafiki footage and didn't say what it was, some people might know, some people might not know how it was done, but it causes you to be present and mindful and pay attention because you're trying to figure out what you're looking at. And that's a great disposition to be in as an audience member.

"I remember when I saw Gravity, I didn't know what I was gonna expect, I just heard it was cool. I didn't know how they did half the tricks. And I was completely drawn in by it and it was the experience I remember going to the movies for when I was little. It just washes over you. I think calling it live-action is also not appropriate either, because it sounds like we're trying to present something that isn't accurate. And I don't know what we're gonna call it. I don't know. But remember, things have to sort of fit into one clickable headline, so it's hard to have the nuance."

Favreau told us that while he obviously wants there to be a familiarity for audiences, he also saw opportunities to change some aspects here and there.

"The more we looked at it, the more we challenged the story, there were certain things that needed addressing to make it feel more appropriate to this medium. But as far as the characters, the story, the themes, the music, we really felt that people were very connected to the original, and so hopefully if you are a fan of the original you'll look at this and say, 'Oh, I feel like I saw Lion King.' Just like when you see the stage play, you still feel a connection to the animated film. But if you really look closely you'll realize we're actually taking a lot of liberties with it and we're even changing things slightly with scenes and structure and the humor."

With actor/musicians like Donald Glover and Beyonce starring in this movie, one of the big questions on everyone's minds was whether or not we'd hear any new songs in this take on The Lion King. Favreau told us yes, but maybe not where we'd expect.

"Not in the body of the film, but once you get to the end of the movie and on, you've got thousands of credits and there's opportunity for lots of music and we have this incredible pool of talent. So as we get into next phase, we're starting to zero in on that. Fortunately, that takes very little time compared to what this takes, so as [production] starts to coalesce, we start to see what we want with the music. And also there's a lot of people that I'm working with that – I don't come from music, and they really know what they're doing, so hopefully that's all gonna come together in a way that [provides] a little more value added."

Near the end of our conversation during our 2017 set visit, Favreau relayed the story of how he got Donald Glover to come on board, what the two of them have in common, and why casting Glover early set the tone for the rest of the production.

"My son was a fan first from Childish Gambino, and then I was very impressed: the fact that he had worked his way through a writers room on 30 Rock, and that he was on Community. And he comes from the improv tradition, which is my background, too, so I was hoping to have a common language with him. Because you take scenes apart differently and you use different terms than you would than if you came out of Juilliard. You're coming from a comedy background, and it's a more, 'Bring your lunch pail and let's figure this out' [approach]. Your experience is, you're getting together and you're usually getting on stage in the back room of a bar and you're putting on an improv show, and you're expecting people – half of which probably didn't even know there was going to be a comedy show – and you gotta make them laugh. You bring in a different set of experiences when you work on a film set. And I like that feeling, that immediacy that comes from improv. And also the freedom to reinterpret material, and giving some freedom for the actor to collaborate, not just in their performance, but in the material and the lines. And then of course, his singing is astounding. I'd seen him, of course, in Atlanta, and then he was cast as Lando [in Solo: A Star Wars Story], but I was hoping that he'd still be available for this because I had my eye on him.

"I finally met him, we did a Hollywood Reporter roundtable a few award seasons ago. And I met him, he was very nice, he was everything I hoped he would be, just like you think seeing how he is on screen. And on a break, I said, 'Hey, look I haven't talked to Disney about this, I don't want to go through all of it now, is this something you might be interested in?' And he was like, 'Yeah, I would be interested!' And then from that point on I talked to Disney and they were into it too, and by that point, he was already part of the Star Wars universe. And then he started winning all these awards and that's always helpful trying to convince (laughs). But they were into him right from the beginning and he has a wonderful timbre to his voice, both singing and performing. You can see that he's just this creative beacon that has – he's already getting involved with animation, as well, on other projects that he's heading up. [Note: Glover's planned Deadpool animated series has since fallen apart at Marvel.] So he's just one of those special creative forces.

"[Audiences] are still trying to figure out what we're doing here, but casting is important – you're sending messages to the fans. And our first announcement was Donald Glover and James Earl Jones, and it kind of was a shorthand for how we're doing this. And then everything else is sort of built out from that. And when the response was people appreciated what we were doing, that they liked that choice, it lowered my blood pressure and I worried less. I felt more confident that we were going down the right road. Donald is very of this moment and creative and new and fresh, and then James Earl Jones, he really carries the tradition and his voice has so much character to it and it's so closely associated with Mufasa. And having them together is one foot in the future, one foot in the past. I think that's what the story is."