Way back in March, Jon Favreau tempted fate by noting that he wanted to add Beyoncé to the already-excellent cast of his “live-action” Jungle Book remake, and now it looks like that plan has actually worked out. Tonight, Beyoncé herself shared a photo of the full Lion King cast on her Facebook page, confirming that she’ll be playing Nala—the lion who basically saves the kingdom by pulling Simba out of his whiny, self-obsessed funk with one romantic musical number. This will be Beyoncé’s first movie role since Epic in 2013, but The Lion King will hopefully turn out better than that one did.
Beyoncé’s post also had the added benefit of basically confirming all of the Lion King casting rumors we’ve heard up until this point while also throwing a couple of new names on the list.
For example, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen have been confirmed as Timon and Pumbaa, as has Chiwetel Ejiofor for Scar. The only remaining question is how this movie about CG lions counts as “live-action,” but that’s for Disney to figure out.