Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner might be Disney’s next farting, Hakuna Matata-quoting warthog and meerkat team, with reports coming today that the two comic actors are in talks to play Pumbaa and Timon in Jon Favreau’s upcoming Lion King remake. The Wrap quotes anonymous sources who say the two are in “final negotiations” for the parts; if so, they’d be taking the place of Ernie Sabella and Nathan Lane, who originated the roles in the 1994 original.
We’ll be honest, though: This feels a little bit too much like “no duh” casting for us to wholeheartedly buy into its veracity. (That is, if someone asked you who should play a high-pitched, excitable meerkat in 2017, Billy Eichner’s the guy you’d skip over for being too obvious.) But it’s not like Favreau hasn’t been pulling out all the stops in the casting for his Lion King, luring in Donald Glover, James Earl Jones, and, possibly, Beyoncé for his live-action remake of the animated classic. So who can say we won’t hear Rogen bombastically dub himself “MR. Pig” when the movie hits theaters in June 2019?