The Lion King director Jon Favreau on why he remade the Disney classic, and being 'blown away' by Beyonce

Los Angeles: The Lion King director Jon Favreau recently opened up about remaking the 1994 classic and also talked about working with singer Beyonce during an interview for The Big Ticket podcast's two-episode Lion King special.

The idea of remaking The Lion King struck Favreau while he was making the 2016 live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book.

"I knew that with the tools that we had and what the technology had to offer and the team that had done such a great job on Jungle Book that there was an opportunity here to show the naturalism of that world," Favreau said during the interview.

Jon Favreau. The Associated Press

"I understood how to make animals act and talk through animation. I understood how to direct animation too because there were some sequences in Jungle Book that didn't have Mowgli in them. Those scenes were completely CG. I was comfortable directing the animators," he informed.

The Lion King stars Donald Glover, Beyonce, Billy Eichner, Seth Rogen, Chwitel Ejiofor and Keegan-Michael Key. The film released on July 19 is headed for a whopping $180+ million opening weekend.

As some critics hit the movie for being too much similar to the original movie, Favreau defended his decision not to introduce much change to the 1994 film.

"Everybody's got their own formula. I'm not saying this is the way you do it, but it's the way I've done it," he said. "You don't want to reinvent it completely. You want people to see it and be able to say, 'I saw The Lion King."

For Favreau, Beyonce's ballad 'Spirit' is a stand-out among original elements.

"Everybody was just blown away. She played it and then I think what I said was, 'Do you mind playing that again?'" Favreau recalled.

"And we played it again and because [was] I just digging this because she's here? I'm here with Beyonce as she's playing this song for me. Is that affecting my read? Am I being objective enough? And it was like, no, these lyrics are good. This works.