Beyoncé stares Nalayoncé in the face in a new promo shot for The Lion king, the only piece of promotion she'll do because Blue told her to

Beyoncé has been like a phantom in regards to all things The Lion king from the moment the press release went out that she was even a part of it. Almost to the point where I wondered if it was even real. But Disney released a bunch of promotional images featuring the cast (sans James Earl Jones) and Beyoncé features in one of them with her Lioness counterpart, Nalayoncé.

A new trailer of The Lion King also surfaced.

I'm not here for any of these live action (can we even truly call The Lion king live action?!) remakes. I've not watched any of them, because every trailer I've seen has been void of the magic and the vividness of the animated originals. Those Aladdin trailers were a fucking travesty. The Lion king looks better, for sure. But it still feels a little characterless. The Lion king has an amazing cast though, all of whom I feel have been well cast and for this reason alone, I will go to watch this.

I wasn't a fan of the original animated movie and am constantly made to feel that something is wrong with me because of it. I just didn't love it the way everybody else did. But I fucking loved the musical. I'm going to hold off on re-watching the original. I'd like to see how I feel about this new version with only a vague recollection of the original.

Beyoncé will not do one lick of press for this film. Beyoncé doesn't even do press junket for her own shit, so she'll be damned if she's gonna do any for some Disney movie. Disney are lucky she even bothered to give them Instagram posts acknowledging her involvement with all this shit. Even though the posts had no captions, no @'s for Disney or the official Lion king account and no hint of Disney branding a logo.

The Lion king soundtrack is gonna be an interesting one though, as Pharrell Williams is a credited producer on five songs and it features an original song from Beyoncé. So, the likelihood of this new song being produced by Pharrell is pretty high. I'm stoked at the prospect of this, because Beyoncé and Pharrell always serve fire. "Work it out" and "Green light" are dead certs for my list of top Beyoncé songs. "Blow" from her self-titled album was a set highlight, and I even like "Apeshit", which I still can't believe Pharrell produced. That shit wasn't his usual signature style. Although once you know it's him, you start to hear him in the music.

The Lion king releases in cinemas from July 19.