Los Angeles, Jun 25 (IANS): Filmmaker Jon Favreau is a big fan of Beyonce Knowles-Carter, and says it was exciting to see the musical element that the Grammy Award-winning singer brought to his film "The Lion King".

Beyonce has lent her voice to the character of Nala, a childhood friend and later love interest of Simba.

"When you think of somebody who you would be excited to interpret the role of Nala, especially the musical performances, Beyonce is in a class all by herself," Favreau said in statement.

"It's a struggle when you have tweens and teens at home to be thought of as cool because you're irritating to your children. But having Beyonce in my film definitely brought me a lot of credibility on the home campus with my kids and their friends.

"I'm a big fan of her music and was very excited to explore what she could bring," he added.

"The Jungle Book" fame director Favreau has re-imagined the world of Disney's classic to bring alive a live-action film.

He has stayed true to the classic story of Simba and used pioneering filmmaking techniques to bring the iconic characters to the big screen in a whole new way.

The film will release in India on July 19 in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.

Donald Glover is leading the cast as young Lion Simba.

Glover and Knowles-Carter are also joined by James Earl Jones who reprises his role from the 1994 animated film as Simba's father Mufasa, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Simba's villainous uncle Scar, Alfre Woodard as Simba's mother Sarabi, with child actor JD McCrary playing the young version of Simba.