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As one of the driving forces in entertainment, Disney has done a phenomenal job of carving out niches and dominating those markets. They're got animation on lock with the double whammy of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation, they're critically and commercially dominating the superhero sphere through their Marvel branch, and with their Lucasfilm acquisition, they've returned Star Wars to the top of the pop culture totem pole. But one of their most ingenious recent developments is the push for live-action remakes of their animated classics, which have proven not only a brilliant business move, but a delight for fans with hits like Cinderella and, perhaps to a lesser degree, Maleficent.

Looking ahead at the projects in the works, it's clear that the live-action remakes have become a priority for the studio, and they've found a solid creative partner on that front in former Iron Man collaborator Jon Favreau, who directed and produced this year's box office smash, The Jungle Book. The live-action/photo-real CGI update of the 1967 classic was a triumph with critics and audiences alike, and the studio was so confident in it, they greenlit the sequel before it even hit theaters. And while Favreau is hard at work on the follow-up, he's also been handed the keys to one of Disney's most beloved films of all time, The Lion King. And it's a move that makes perfect sense. After all, Favreau already proved he can handle not only the tremendous technical challenges, but the narrative challenge of keeping the story rooted in adventure and making sure those photoreal beasties don't become straight-up terrifying.

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Image via Disney

With The Jungle Book now available on home video, Collider's Steve Weintraub recently sat down with Favreau to chat about the film and he took the opportunity to get some updates on the status of Favreau's upcoming projects. The director talked about what he learned from The Jungle Book that he's carrying over to The Lion King, the importance of nailing the story before moving on to effects, and a lot more. Check out what he had to say below.

Asked about his progress on the two features, Favreau made it very clear that these high-tech live-action remakes take a lot of time. Naturally, the photorealistic CGI worlds take time on a technical level, but most importantly, they've got to get the story locked in first.

I think nothing's quick. This is a slow process and rushing it is not a good idea because a lot of when people react to visual effects they don't like, often times it's because it's rushed and because it's not well thought through ahead of time. Having gone up to Pixar and working with them on this and other projects -- and they're about as technical as you get -- they always say the same thing -- it's all about story. Make sure the story is perfect before you launch forward into the next phase. The technical phase doesn't come until the human storytelling phase is done.

And while Favreau and his team are hard at work on cracking the stories for both films, each has its own set of challenges. For The Jungle Book 2, it's all about making sure that story feels connected to the world and tone they built in the first film:

For Jungle Book 2, it's all about the story, all about the script, all about the characters and we're working on that, and making a lot of progress and have some stuff that feels connected. Because you want it to feel like the first film. You want it to feel not like you're doing a different genre a film because you're doing another chapter, you want it to feel connected to the original.

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Image via Disney

As for The Lion King, Favreau is well aware of film's beloved status among a generation of movie-goers and his main concern is finding a way to honor the original while embracing the storytelling possibilities of modern technology.

With Lion King, there you have such a strong original film, and then there was a theater production of it as well in a different medium that was very well received and successful and still continues to play. And you have a lot of people with very deep memories and connections to those properties so you want to make sure that, even though the story is very strong, you want to make sure it translates well to yet another medium and doesn't feel like it's duplicating or trying to outdo what was done in another medium.

How do you include the music and the look and the characters and the story points? And can you do it convincingly so that it feels like you're actually observing real animals in nature while still preserving the characters and the tone and the personality aspects of the film and what tonal things have to change. Having been through it on Jungle Book was very helpful, but what a tremendous opportunity because people feel so connected to it, but with that comes such a tremendous responsibility because you don't want to do anything that undermines people's connection to the original, which is so wonderful.

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Image via Disney

But Favreau's got a major advantage when it comes to adapting a beloved classic -- he already did it with The Jungle Book, and he did it well. Naturally, Favreau is looking to what he learned on The Jungle Book for guidance, especially when it comes to translating the action and environments into photoreal animation.

The thing is that the animated version of The Lion King is -- I don't know how you outdo that. It works tremendously well. I think it was sort of the end of the era before the 3D animation started coming in, and I don't think anybody wants to see an animated version because if you want to see an animated version, look at the original. It holds up, it's still wonderful to watch. So the trick is can you make it look like you actually found real animals in a real environment? And how do you translate the story through that? And in that sense, what we learned on Jungle Book as we got into the photorealism of the environments and the characters, the behavior of the animals, how do you use the lessons you learned there, but adjust it to the tone of what Lion King is?   Because I think that when you hear the opening song, when you see those images, the photography of it, even in 2D it is arresting, and I try to imagine what it could be like using the tools that we have today and could we make audiences feel the same way and retell the same myth using these new tools? So the challenge becomes how do you have it look photoreal? And what has to be adjusted so that it doesn't feel inconsistent?   In Jungle Book, if we just took everything that was in the '67 film, that humor would have been too broad for a live-action, and also you have to take into account that these look like real animals, so the intensity of it gets really notched up. So understanding the lessons that we learned from Jungle Book is really helpful as we develop this, but it's all a discovery process. And fortunately, working with a lot of the same people and it feels like a continuation of that journey.

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Image via Disney

But does Favreau intend to direct both? After all, if each film is such an intensive and time-consuming commitment, could he possibly take a smaller role as producer on Jungle Book 2 and hand over the directorial reigns? For now, Favreau intends to helm both and move from one right into the next, but he's had plenty of experience with mega-budget blockbusters and he's quick to admit that burnout could become a factor.

I think we're kind of learning a lot about how this all works right now I'm kind of full bore into developing the tools to tell the story for Lion King, because you're sort of developing whole new sets of tools for each production. And right now in the story phase, getting the story right for Jungle Book 2. I don't know. Right now the plan is that we go right from one into the other, but I know from having worked on two superhero movies back to back, these take many many many years. I was working on Marvel movies for like four years back-to-back. It's a big chunk of your life and you have to make sure that you're excited and can bring all of your attention and concentration to bear on this, because they are really big puzzles. Every film is a puzzle you have to solve -- these highly technical ones are like 3D chess. There's like a whole other level to it that has to be understood and learned.

Look for more from Steve's interview with Jon Favreau soon.

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Image via Disney
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Image via Disney
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Image via Disney
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Image via Disney