Elton John wrote the music for The Lion King 1994. The soundtrack opened number one and has gone on to sell over 10 million copies in the United States, making it the biggest soundtrack ever for an animated film
While the 2019 remake of The Lion King was a huge box office success, its two soundtracks flopped, despite Beyonce's close involvement.
John criticized the direction of the 2019 soundtracks in an interview with British GQ.
“The new version of The Lion King was a huge disappointment to me, because I believe they messed the music up,” Elton said. “Music was so much a part of the original and the music in the current film didn’t have the same impact. The magic and joy were lost. The soundtrack hasn’t had nearly the same impact in the charts that it had 25 years ago, when it was the bestselling album of the year.”
The new Lion King's first soundtrack was more or less a remake of the original John and Tim Rice collection of songs with the new cast singing, and a new track from Beyonce. The second was the companion soundtrack, The Lion King: The Gift, which was produced and curated by Beyonce and featured Jay-Z, Childish Gambino, Pharrell Williams, Kendrick Lamar and a slew of African musicians.
Neither made much of an impact on the charts.
“The new soundtrack fell out of the charts so quickly, despite the massive box-office success,” Elton continued. “I wish I’d been invited to the party more, but the creative vision for the film and its music was different this time around and I wasn’t really welcomed or treated with the same level of respect. That makes me extremely sad. I’m so happy that the right spirit for the music lives on with the Lion King stage musical.”
That's some serious Queen Bey shade from Sir Elton. We're sure the Beehive will be outraged and do things with emojis and we are also sure John is too old to care.