James Earl Jones Isn’t Dead, Is Working On ‘Lion King’ Sequel

It’s now been confirmed that legendary screen actor James Earl Jones hasn’t in fact died, after a torrid online rumor started to do the rounds had suggested the 84-year-old had perished.

Rumors that James Earl Jones had died first started to appear last week after a website posted a news story that claimed he had. However, intrigued and saddened users soon learnt that the story was indeed fake after they clicked onto it and were then taken to another page that revealed that it was indeed fake. The page simply declared, “You got owned!”

But that didn’t stop people from across the internet from simply reading the headline and then tweeting and sending out their condolences, which led to the story then trending across the world wide web.

News of James Earl Jones’ death had been greatly exaggerated though. In fact, over the weekend, the acting legend appeared on Twitter for the first time, in order to promote his performances in The Gin Game, which is set to hit Broadway on September 23.

And James Earl Jones has some rather big plans for the near future too, because earlier this month it was revealed that the actor is set to reprise his vocal performance as Mufasa in a Lion King sequel.

It was reported on August 12, via Vulture, that Disney plan on expanding The Lion King franchise with a new television movie, The Lion Guard: Return Of The Roar, which will then be followed by a television series simply entitled The Lion Guard.

It also features a very impressive vocal cast, because both Rob Lowe and Gabrielle Union will be voicing the characters of Simba and Nala. However, the main story from the work on the Lion King follow-up is that James Earl Jones is once again going to be voicing Mufasa, the father to Simba who was so viciously murdered in the 1994 classic Disney film.

The Lion Guard will actually revolve around Kion, the cub to Simba and Nala, while he will be friends with a honey badger, an intelligent egret, a cheetah, and a jolly hippo. This merry band of animals will then wander through the Pride Lands together.

James Earl Jones had previously found fame as an actor in Doctor Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb, while he also voiced Darth Vadar in the Star Wars trilogy, and has won a variety of awards.

[Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images]