Personally, I didn't love "The Jungle Book." But people seem to really enjoy Jon's approach with that film and families really enjoyed it. So if he can have even half of that success with "The Lion King", then this film could still make 900 million dollars worldwide. And if it's a better film, then a billion dollars is not out of the question.
Last Films seen:
Fantastic Four(2015)- 5/10
Sully(2016)- 8/10
Don't Breath(2016)- 9/10

I think it's a very odd choice for a live action remake. If it is just going to be photorealistic CG then what's the point? As for the movie itself, I think it's great. I love the soundtrack.

It sounds stupidbut it'll probably be a big hit. I was skeptical about Jungle Book but apparently my finger is nowhere near the pulse of the average audience because crowds ate that movie up. On top of that even Tarzan did vastly better business than anybody gave it a chance of doing before it was released. I'm really not sure how you could turn a movie with an all-animal cast into a live action filmbut if there's a way to do it I can see it doing well at the boxoffice.

definitely room for improvement - so go ahead, TLK is weakly written and executed as a whole

No, they just announced a release date for it. They previously announced a live-action
Mulan
film back in March 2015.
What we do in life, echoes in eternity.

Western studios are certainly trying to appeal to the Chinese Market, with mixed results. Independence Day:Resurgance made a big effort for the Chinese Market (casting one of China's most popular pop singers in a major role,giving China a big part of the storyline)but it still underperformed. Frankly, "The Martian" was a lot smarter in appealing to the Chinese market;it did so without looking like it was panderingwhich can backfire.

On one level it makes sense with the growth in China, though there have already been several films and TV series about her - with 2009's Hua Mulan being heavily promoted by the Chinese government as rescuing a national heroine from Disneyfication - so the Disney approach may not be as welcome in China as they think.
"Security - release the badgers."

And Today, Oct 4, The Mouse announced a live action Mulan film. They are really running with the "Live Action Versions of Animated Films" concept.

No Human charecters might give them a break when it comes to 'Uncanny Valley".

I think Trevor raised a great point before, however, about the fact that a human character anchored The Jungle Book, gave the animals something of an excuse to talk, and I do think it made the film look more impressive, as you had a real person interacting with an entirely CGI world.
No humans puts me in mind of something like Dinosaur, especially if Disney attempt to go for the photo-realistic route, where talking lions might look silly.
Shut it, Love Actually! Do you want me to hole punch your face?

What if it's good?

Well, I just meant that to some degree they did have sets that the child actor was interacting with and present on.
But without any human actors, this could essentially be a 100% "animated" film, and I'm curious if they will consider incorporating ANY "live action"(sets, plates, whichever) into the filmbecause in theory it would allow them to spend more time/money/attention on the CGI characters.
Self improvement is a full-time job

Jungle Book had more than a few soundstage sets for the young actor to perform on and then the CGI characters and extended CGI backgrounds were dropped in.
I wonder if they would use the same formula here, incorporate actual live action set/plate photography even though they will have NO live action performers there
Did they ? I had the impression the way they talked about it it that it was almost 100% CGI except element really close to the actor (or touching it, a bit of mud some tree), but it sound way too much work to not start with some plate.
The director on twitter:
@MonkeyBoy1138 How many of the locations were real, and how many are cgi? Theyre looking pretty authentic.
Jon Favreau:
None are real. All are CGI.
The whole movie was shot in downtown LA. Mowgli floating down the river on Baloos belly singing was difficult to recreate with real physics. Lots of R&D
I wonder if he just mean all bluescreen and not all CGI, they still used some real photography for those background and made composition ?

Sure, whatever term we like to use. I get the impression that it will basically be like The Jungle Book without the child.
More or less realistically proportioned CGI lions with lip-sync, pulled off via motion capture and animation and things of that nature.in a largely realistic(not cartoony) CGI world.
I'm wondering if they'll film any live action plates/backgrounds/soundstage set type stuff and then drop the CGI characters in?
Jungle Book had more than a few soundstage sets for the young actor to perform on and then the CGI characters and extended CGI backgrounds were dropped in.
I wonder if they would use the same formula here, incorporate actual live action set/plate photography even though they will have NO live action performers there.
Self improvement is a full-time job

If Disney could pull of stage version of TLK and make it a massive success,I think they can pull off a CGI version.
But I would not go for absolute photo realism;they need to avoid "Uncanny Valley" on a film as expensive as this will be.

Child of the 90s. The Lion King is my favorite animated film. I'm 100% okay with this happening.
The notion of remaking it as a 'photo-real animated film' is very exciting to me. The Lion King is a classic, and retelling that story in a new way with a new medium has a ton of potential.
And when you tell me they have Jon Favreau directing, well, I'm pretty much sold.
Maybe it turns out sour, but it has plenty going for it, as a fan I'm excited and outside of that I think it will print money at the box office.
As long as the OPENING matches the original film, and we get the iconic Circle of Life playing with the Sunrise.they can diverge and 're-imagine' appropriately after that.
Self improvement is a full-time job

CGI is the only realistic way to pull this off. Animatroinics and live animals would be too expensive and there is real doubt either could work anyway.
Or they could use huge puppets and manikans like the very successful stage show.

He's referring to Disney's
Dinosaur
back in 2000. There was actually a fatality shooting the live action footage:
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/apr/14/local/me-39062
"Security - release the badgers."

A Pixar movie used photography in is final product ?
I know they took picture and reproduced real environment for it, but I thought it was 100% cgi.
Reading about it, it look like they scanned real environment used the data to generated them in computer, it is all rendered.

the animals in TLK are much more anthropomorphized, which is harder to pull off with photo-realism, while there's no human character this time to give an audience a way in
That is why I'm not 100% sure they will go with photo-realism (Timon and pumbaa need to talk a lot), the fact that people have an hard time imagining the result could be an argument for the adaptation, it is not as obvious and easy like some others adaptation they are doing.

CGi, same as The Jungle Book. Though it has a couple of problems that didn't - the animals in TLK are much more anthropomorphized, which is harder to pull off with photo-realism, while there's no human character this time to give an audience a way in (not a problem in the stage show where it's obviously people performing in stylized animal costumes).
Also, the story to TLK is really quite weak, and without animation those weaknesses could well be more noticeable and problematic.
"Security - release the badgers."

How is a live action Lion King going to work? Are they going to be giant animatronic animals? Or is actually going to be all CGI that just looks like live action? Or maybe they'll just have really good animal trainers use real animals and the animals can "talk" telepathically?

I think it's a strange choice for a 'live action' remake
I'm curious about that part, does that mean they will go in a photo realistic route like for the jungle book ? The story could become a little bit too intense for really young kids (that part of the point of doing Hamlet with cartoon animals, making it accessible).
Maybe they will go with a completely new aesthetic that justify completely the experience.
how high could this go?
Really high, it is more risky that something that seem like it will almost certainly work as a "live action adaptation", say Cinderella. But something like Lion Kings could travel extremely well all around the world and for a market like China, it will not be seen as a cash grab sequel, but more like a first time in 3d theater experience of that story told with lions. Jungle Book made 150 million in China, I could see Lion Kings making 300.

Ever hear of ISIS and Charlie Hebdo?
Guaranteed,Disney will not do a live action Aladdin because of the controversy and it would be such a high visilbilty target for ISIS. Welcome to 2016, friend.
Yeah, I don't buy that. Not one bit. Charlie Hebdo was an isolated incident. There have been plenty of films/tv series that are at least partially set in the middle east and none of them have created much controversy (the biggest incident I can remember was someone spray painting "Homeland sucks" in the background of an episode on Homeland). And Disney is not going to be mocking their religion or anything. The only controversy I could see them getting is the usual whitewashing that'll probably happen, but I doubt that'll have much if any impact on the film's potential.
Plus, I think you're way overestimating what people in the middle east think of Aladdin. It's not part of their religion, it's a fairy tale to entertain kids, no different than Cinderella or Snow White here. Heck, the original story isn't even set in Arabia, it's set in China.
The only risk for Disney is a financial one. So far, action adventure films set in Arabia has had a rough track record, as Disney itself found out with Prince of Persia, which I bet anything is the reason why they're hesitant about making a live-action Aladdin.