However, bringing an animated classic to full-bodied life is still a challenging job.

With experience accumulated from the 2016 hit, The Jungle Book, which seamlessly combines live-action performance with photorealistic CGI animals and landscapes, Favreau seems competent enough for the job, exemplified by the vivid presentation of Simba and other animal characters in film's trailers.

Preparations for the film started two years ago. A team of 13 people was dispatched to Kenya for two weeks to seek inspiration and think about how to bring the iconic sets and characters to life. Three helicopters and six SUVs were used to transport nearly a ton of filming equipment used to capture more than 12.3 trillion terabytes of images.

To be as realistic as photographs, however, is not the ambitious crew's final goal. According to Disney, they also used something called the "black-box" theater technique to make sure that the voice-over actors could perform naturally and record their facial emotions as part of the animation procedure.

Ma Boyong, a best-selling novelist, says he has watched the 1994 Lion King film multiple times over the past 20 years. He believes the most charming part of it is the message conveyed by The Circle of Life, arguably the most famous song in the animated film.

"It makes the film about more than just the conflict between a group of animals, or a royal conspiracy… It discusses the classical questions about the meaning of life, answers to which have been sought by humankind since ancient times," he says.

xufan@chinadaily.com.cn