Doctor Strange star Chiwetel Ejiofor is reportedly in talks to portray the villainous Scar in Jon Favreau's remake of The Lion King. There have been plenty of rumors about who was going to step in and take the role of Simba's evil uncle, including Hugh Jackman and even Jeremy Irons reprising his role from the 1994 animated classic. Speaking of reprising roles, James Earl Jones will once again play Simba's dad, Mufasa, a decision that has had fans both excited and wondering if anybody else will come back from the original movie.

The Wrap is reporting that Chiwetel Ejiofor is in talks at the moment to step into Jeremy Irons' shoes and play Scar. The Academy Award nominated Ejiofor was last seen on the big screen as Karl Mordo in Marvel's Doctor Strange, so it's not too much of a stretch to see him up for a Disney role, plus his tone and British voice would suit Scar just right. The Wrap has said that an inside source close to the project has revealed the talks, so it's best to take the news with a grain of salt. However, the choice of Ejiofor does seem to make the most sense out of all of the rumors heard thus far.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is an English-Nigerian actor who has been acting in theatre, television, and movies since the late 1990s. It was his performance in Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave as Solomon Northrup that earned Ejiofor multiple award nominations from The Academy Awards and Golden Globes and a series of Best Actor wins through numerous award organizations. The actor nearly turned the role down out of fear that he might not be able to pull off the performance, but ended up taking the role 24 hours after initially being asked.

Earlier this week, Disney released some rare video of Jeremy Irons voicing Scar in the original 1994 animated movie for the upcoming release of the Walt Disney Signature Collection release of The Lion King. The video splices in-studio footage of the voice-over sessions along with scenes from the movie. There are also brief snippets of footage of voice-over sessions including James Earl Jones, Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin, and Jim Cummings.

Disney's original Lion King is/was a huge hit and remains the third highest grossing animated feature of all-time with $968.4 million worldwide. The explosive live-action musical based on the animated movie debuted in 1997 and is still going strong today, 20 years later. Jon Favreau definitely has a lot to live up to, but the footage shown at the D23 Expo last month has definitely started the project on the right foot as fans in attendance called the footage of the "Circle of Life" opening scene "amazing" and "breathtaking." The scene ended with the iconic image of Rafiki presenting baby Simba to the animals of the Pridelands. Favreau's live-action remake of The Lion King is set to hit theaters on July 19th, 2019 and also stars Donald Glover as Simba, Jon Oliver as Zazu, and James Earl Jones as Mustafa.