Jon Favreau’s live-action/CGI reboot of The Lion King continues to accrue a big-name Hollywood cast, with The Wrap reporting today that Chiwetel Ejiofor is in talks to voice the evil Scar. If talks go forward, he’d be filling the shoes of Jeremy Irons, who played the role with velvety menace in the 1994 original.
Ejiofor recently served his time in the Marvel movie mines, playing Baron Mordo in Doctor Strange. (Before that, he starred in 12 Years A Slave, The Martian, and stretched his villain muscles as the honorable-but-evil Operative in Serenity.) He’d join a cast that includes Donald Glover as Scar’s initially cheerful nephew Simba, Jon Oliver as punctilious hornbill Zazu, and James Earl Jones, reprising his role as Mufasa.