Beyoncé is officially starring as Nahla in "The Lion King"

Beyoncé is taking her place in The Lion King's circle of life. The 1994 Disney classic, which made $968.4 million during its original release, is being remade with an all-star cast. There have been whispers of Beyoncé joining the cast, but Queen B made the announcement to play Nahla Facebook official to her 60 million followers today. She'll be working with director Jon Favreau, whose recent works include the Iron Man films and 2016's The Jungle Book.
“It is a director’s dream to assemble a talented team like this to bring this classic story to life,” Favreau said in a press release.
The other new additions to The Lion King cast include Eric Andre and Keegan-Michael Key, who will play Azizi and Kamari. Donald Glover is taking a break from his hit FX show Atlanta and his rap career as alter ego Childish Gambino to star as Simba. James Earle Jones will reprise his original role as the first lion king, Mufasa.
Other celebrities in the cast include Chiwetel Ejifor, John Oliver, John Kani, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen. The movie will be a film version of the famed Broadway production. The Lion King will be a recreation of live action with digital effects, meaning the characters will be animals — with some of the best voices in Hollywood today.
Despite coming out over 20 years ago, The Lion King has remained a cultural mainstay, in large part due to the ubiquity of the Hans Zimmer score and the soundtrack written by Elton John and Tim Rice. But The Lion King has also stayed relevant through its twenty consecutive years as the Broadway musical, winning six Tony awards. The Lion King is the highest grossing stage musical of all time, reaching $6.2 billion in 2014.
The Lion King is slated to open July 19th, 2019.