When Disney tapped filmmaker Jon Favreau to direct a computer-animated remake of its 1994 classic, The Lion King, it was met with of raised eyebrows, minot irritation, and a shedload’s worth of doubt, but the joke – if, indeed, a joke was meant or intended – was apparently on the naysayers and scolds. Released in the summer of 2019, the computer-animated result easily broke the $1.6B mark at the global office, proving once again that pre-packaged nostalgia, especially pre-packaged nostalgia connected to beloved, decades-old, corporate-owned intellectual property, sells incredibly well across every demographic possible. With that kind of shareholder-pleasing return on investment, a sequel was all but inevitable. Instead, though, Disney executives decided to sidestep a full-on sequel...

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