'Lion King' Eyes Seth Rogen, Billy Eichner to Voice Timon and Pumbaa
By Mia Galuppo, The Hollywood Reporter
Jon Favreau‘s The Lion King may have found its Hakuna Matata. Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner are in talks to voice Pumbaa and Timon, respectively.
Donald Glover is set to star as Simba, while James Earl Jones will reprise his role from the 1994 animation as Mufasa.
Jeff Nathanson (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) wrote the script for the live-action adaptation, which is being produced by Favreau and Jeffrey Silver.
In the original animation, Nathan Lane voiced the loud-mouth meerkat and Ernie Sabella tackled the kindly warthog.
Rogen, who has voiced animated characters in films including Kung Fu Panda, Monsters vs. Aliens, and last year’s Sausage Party, which he also co-wrote and produced, will next be seen in James Franco‘s The Disaster Artist. He is also set to star opposite Charlize Theron in the political comedy Flarsky. He is repped by UTA, Principal Entertainment and Felker Toczek.
Eichner is best known as the aggressively inquisitive host of Billy on the Street, which earned him a Daytime Emmy. He also stars in the Hulu series Difficult People and has been seen on Parks and Recreation and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. He is repped by UTA and 3 Arts.
These castings come on the heels of more big news for the Lion King production. Today, Disney gave the project a release date of July 19, 2019, along with several other upcoming productions including Indiana Jones, Frozen 2, and Star Wars: Episode IX.
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