Did you know that The Lion King is the highest-selling home video tape of all time, selling over 32 million copies? It was also the second highest grossing film in 1994 in North America behind Forrest Gump, with a domestic gross of $312 million, and a grand worldwide total of $858 million, making it the highest-grossing film of 1994 period. It held the record for highest-grossing animated feature for 9 years until the record was broken by Pixar’s Finding Nemo in 2003. It remained the highest-grossing film from Walt Disney Animation Studios until it was surpassed by Frozen in 2013. Nevertheless, to this day, The Lion King still remains the highest-grossing traditionally hand-drawn animated feature of all time. Following its original theatrical run between June 24, 1994 and spring 1995, the film was re-released in theaters twice: The first was on Christmas Day 2002 exclusively in IMAX and other large screen theaters. This version included a new song sequence not in the original version called “The Morning Report”, which was sung by Zazu, the king’s majordomo, and was written by the film’s songwriting team Elton John and Tim Rice for the Broadway musical version of the film. This version can be seen on the film’s 2003 Special Edition DVD release. The second re-release was on September 16, 2011, and was shown in Disney Digital 3D with a limited two-week run. It reached the number-one spot at the domestic box-office that week, making it the first re-release to do so since the Special Edition of Return of the Jedi in 1997. This re-release was subsequently followed by the film’s first release on Blu-ray Disc. The surprise success of The Lion King in 3D led Disney to convert and re-release other animated classics in 3D, including Beauty and the Beast on January 2012, Finding Nemo on September 2012, Monsters, Inc. on December 2012, and The Little Mermaid scheduled for September 2013. Unfortunately, the first three 3D re-releases were not as financially successful as Lion King, so on January 2013 they cancelled the 3D re-issue of Mermaid in response. With all the money it made with its original run and the two re-issues combined, The Lion King has made a grand total of over $968 million worldwide!
The idea for what would become The Lion King goes all the way back to the mid-1980’s, but serious development on the concept first began around 1988. The first known treatment for the film, submitted on November that year, was called King of the Kalahari, and was written by sci-fi author Thomas M. Disch, the author of The Brave Little Toaster. This version of the story would’ve opened with an animated map of Africa, setting up the location of the plot. The story was also about an on-going war between lions and baboons, with Scar being the leader of the baboon clan and Rafiki being a cheetah among other things. The main protagonist who would become Simba would have become lazy and slobby and would’ve been overthrown and killed at the plot’s climax. Around this point, the project went in a different direction and was now under the working title King of the Jungle, despite the fact that lions don’t live in the jungle. After finishing The Little Mermaid (1989), directors John Musker and Ron Clements were approached to direct King of the Jungle at one point, but quickly passed on the project in favor of Aladdin (1992). George Scribner, the director of Disney’s Oliver and Company (1988), became the film’s director. He envisioned the film as an “animated National Geographic special” and two scripts were developed based on this inital vision. In 2012, these two drafts were leaked online and revealed some shocking and fascinating details reflecting Scribner’s initial vision for the project. The first script dated January 19, 1990, was called (oddly enough) The Lion King and was written by J.T. Allen. The second dated May 23, 1990 was known as King of the Beasts. This draft is very similar to the first draft with several differences and was written by Allen along with Ronald Bass, the writer of Rain Man (1988). Many of the familiar characters like Simba, Nala, Mufasa and Scar are present in both screenplays as well as the basic premise of “Bambi meets Hamlet in Africa”, yet there are also instances of material not suitable for a family audience, including graphic violence and even incest as Simba and Nala are cousins, whereas in the final film Nala’s father remains a mystery. Also recently discovered along with the two early screenplays were some pastel storyboards created by Disney story artist Mel Shaw, visualizing certain events in the script. Hans Bacher created several beautiful pieces of concept art reflecting Scribner’s insistence on realism, some samples of which can be seen below. The paintings were compiled into a short presentation reel to give companies involved with marketing tie-ins a basic idea as to what Disney’s next big animated feature would be like. According to the end of the reel, the film was originally slated for a holiday release in November 1993, the following year after Aladdin, but was later pushed back to the summer of 1994, with The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) taking its original holiday 1993 spot.
Top left to bottom right: Concept art for “The Lion King” by Hans Bacher
It was around 1991 when The Lion King as we now it started to take shape. Scribner was now joined by a new director, Roger Allers, who was the head of the story department on Beauty and the Beast (1991). On November 1991 just before production began, a small group of Disney animators and artists including directors Allers and Scribner, story head Brenda Chapman, production designer Chris Sanders, and visual development artist Lisa Keene, traveled to Hell’s Gate National Park in Kenya. The whole trip had a massive influence on the epic scale of the final film. For example, for the “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” musical number, Chris Sanders modeled the visual style for the sequence from the colorful patterns of African fabrics. The tour guide introduced them the Swahili phrase “Hakuna Matata”, meaning ‘no worries’, which has become one of the musical highlights of the film. As Roger Allers noted in The Art of The Lion King book, “The whole experience helped bring everything into focus and allowed us to visualize the enchanted, yet realistic Africa that we wanted as our setting… The movie wouldn’t have been the same without that trip.” When the group arrived back home in Burbank, California, Scribner and Allers argued over the direction they wanted to take the film. Allers wanted the film to be an epic coming-of-age drama, while Scribner wanted a nature documentary look and feel. In the end, Scribner left the project with Rob Minkoff taking his place. For the story, Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts and Lind Woolverton were brought in to write the screenplay. Woolverton had previously written the screenplay for Beauty and the Beast. Even though The Lion King was the first Disney animated feature not based on a previously established fairy tale or book, The writers and story team not only borrowed heavily from William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet and Disney’s own Bambi (1942), but also drew inspiration from the stories of Joseph and Moses from the Old Testament of the Bible. They also studied the writings of Joseph Campbell on how to properly convey the hero’s journey aspect of the film, similar to how George Lucas studied Campbell’s teachings when he first wrote Star Wars (1977). The two directors took inspiration from the works of American painters like Charles Marion Russell, Frederic Remington, N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, and J.C. Leyendecker to give the film its epic scope. The films of David Lean also served as an influence to the crew on how majestic visuals can help service the story rather than overtake it. Around the point it was decided to make it a musical, lyricist Tim Rice, who collaborated with Alan Menken on Aladdin and later won an Academy Award for Best Original Song with Menken for “A Whole New World”, was brought in to write the songs’ lyrics. Rice also worked with Andrew Lloyd Webber on musicals like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Evita. Because Menken was unavailable and busy working on Aladdin and Pocahontas (1995), Rice originally wanted Benny Andersson from the pop group ABBA to compose music for the songs but couldn’t get a hold of him, so they went with pop superstar Elton John, who was delighted in working on a Disney animated feature, inspired by the soundtrack of The Jungle Book (1967). Hans Zimmer at first hesitated to work on a kid’s film but was convinced to score the film when the story’s themes reminded him of his relationship with his father and his daughter, and worked closely with Lebo M., who composed the African tribal chants including the famous “Nants ingonyama” for the opening, to give the score an authentic African sound. Lebo M. has also collaborated with Jerry Goldsmith on Congo (1995) and James Newton Howard on Dinosaur (2000). Zimmer was rewarded for his efforts when he won his first and only Academy Award for Best Original Score. The Lion King was also the last Disney animated feature to be supervised by executive producer Jeffrey Katzenberg before he left Disney on October 1994 to cofound DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen.
Many of the top animators at Disney, including Glen Keane, refused to work on Lion King and instead went to work on Pocahontas, which began production at the same time, as they believed it would be the bigger financial and critical success. Those who agreed to work on Lion King were called the ‘B’ team, while the Pocahontas crew was known as the ‘A’ team. Surprisingly, one of the top animators at Disney, Andreas Deja, accepted the assignment of animating Scar because he wanted to do a character similar to Shere Khan from The Jungle Book, one of his personal favorites and even studied Milt Kahl’s original drawings of Shere Kahn as reference for animating Scar. Scar was the third consecutive Disney villain to be animated by Deja, as he had previously been the supervising animator for both Gaston in Beauty and the Beast and Jafar in Aladdin. The animators filmed or videotaped the voice actors in their recording booths and used them as reference and integrated their facial expressions onto the characters. The animators also studied real animals in order to draw and animate them as realistically as possible. Wildlife expert Jim Fowler even brought in a live full-grown lion into the studio for the animators to study. Overall more than 600 artists contributed to the making of The Lion King. One of the most challenging sequences for the animators to create was the wildebeest stampede scene. Several distinct wildebeests were created in a 3D computer program, multiplied by hundreds, cel-shaded to look hand-drawn, and each were given randomized paths down a virtual mountainside to simulate the real, unpredictable movement of a raging herd. Five specially trained animators and technicians spent more than two years creating the entire sequence! Around November 1993, the first teaser trailer for The Lion King was released and shown in front of The Three Musketeers, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit and some screenings of The Nightmare Before Christmas. The preview consisted only of the entire “Circle of Life” opening sequence, causing a massively enthusiastic reaction from audiences. The notion of using a film’s opening sequence for its first trailer would also be used for films like Dinosaur and Ice Age (2002). By that time, only about 30% of the film had been completed, including the “Circle of Life” opening. Two behind-the-scenes were also created for the 1993 VHS release of Aladdin and the 1994 VHS release of The Fox and the Hound respectively. Then on January 17, 1994, a massive earthquake occurred in the greater area of Los Angeles in Southern California, causing the studio to be closed down till the roads and highways were fixed, forcing many animators to complete their work at home! That same year on April 3, Frank Wells, the President of the Walt Disney Company since 1984, suddenly died in a helicopter crash. The final film opens with a dedication to his memory before the Walt Disney Pictures logo appears.
With its lengthy and complicated development and production process, it’s not surprising that many characters, songs and sequences were heavily changed or even cut from the final story. The original opening was very dialogue heavy, but was quickly scrapped when the directors first heard Hans Zimmer’s take on “Circle of Life”. Scar was originally a brutish rogue unrelated to Mufasa, but the writers thought it would be more interesting if they were related, so they made Scar the king’s ambitious scheming brother. After Scar took over the pride, he wanted grown up Nala to be his queen. When she refused his sexual advances on her, Scar had her banished from the Pride Lands only for her to meet up with Simba in Timon and Pumbaa’s jungle. This was cut because the crew felt that sexual harassment was too inappropriate for a family feature, but the scene was resurrected for “The Madness of King Scar” sequence in the Broadway stage version. The concept of a villain hitting on a female character was also kept for another future Disney film The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), in which Judge Frollo lusts over gypsy Esmeralda. After his death, Mufasa was originally never to appear in the film again afterwards, but the scene with his ghost telling Simba to go back was created because the crew Simba needed the proper motivation and ended up being the last major scene created for the film. The film’s climax originally had Scar tricking Simba into helping him from dangling off the top of Pride Rock, only to hurl him off to his demise. Scar would laugh maniacally as the fire burned him alive! Simba himself would’ve survived the fall. This was changed because it felt too anti-climactic, so the scene was rewritten so that Simba defeated Scar and the hyenas would kill him off. For “Hakuna Matata”, the song originally started out with Timon’s backstory but was cut for time; Timon’s origins were later explored in the direct-to-video sequel The Lion King 1½ (2004). Many characters were scrapped including Mheetu, Nala’s tagalong baby brother, Daabi, an aardvark with a speech impediment, and Bhati, a wise-cracking bat-eared fox companion for Nala, just to name a few. Some songs that were cut included “Warthog Rhapsody” which was replaced by “Hakuna Matata” (but can still be found on the album Rhythm of the Pride Lands), a solo for Mufasa called “To Be King” which was replaced by “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” a lullaby sung by Sarabi to Simba after his encounter with the hyenas called “The Lion in the Moon”, and a reprise of “Be Prepared” sung by Scar when he and the hyenas take over Pride Rock. The reprise was cut due to overkill (no pun intended) after the emotional blow of Mufasa’s death, but the first two verses were used in the stage musical version. Elton John was shocked when the crew originally had Timon and Pumbaa sing “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” as a comical duet instead on focusing on Simba and Nala’s relationship as he had intended and fought to change it into the sequence as we know it today. John and Rice later went on to win the Oscar for Best Original Song for “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”.
As for the voice cast, Disney initially considered actors like Sean Connery, Timothy Dalton and Liam Neeson to voice Mufasa, until James Earl Jones from Star Wars and Field of Dreams won the role. Actors like James Caan, Ray Liotta, Robert Duvall, Malcolm McDowell and Tim Curry were all considered for the voice of Scar before being given to Jeremy Irons, who won an Oscar for Reversal of Fortune. Interestingly enough, in Fortune when one person says to Irons’ character Claus von Bülow that he is a strange person, Irons replies “You have no idea.”, and in Lion King, when Simba says to his Uncle Scar “You’re so weird.”, Scar makes the exact same reply in the exact same tone. The hardest character to cast was surprisingly Zazu! All five surviving members of Monty Python (John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Michael Palin), Patrick Stewart, Chris Barrie and Dudley Moore all turned down the role. John Cleese turned it down so he could voice Jean-Bob the frog in another animated feature The Swan Princess. Ultimately, it was Rowan Atkinson from Blackadder and Mr. Bean who won the role after some animators watched some episodes of Mr. Bean. Nathan Lane also auditioned for Zazu before he read for the hyenas with Ernie Sabella. The directors loved their chemistry so much that both lane and Sabella were cast as Timon and Pumbaa. As for the hyenas, the crew wanted Cheech and Chong to voice Banzai and Shenzi respectively, and while they got Cheech Marin, who also voiced Tito the chihuahua in Oliver and Company, they couldn’t get a hold of Tommy Chong. So instead, they rewrote Shenzi as a female and cast Whoopi Goldberg who had just won an Oscar for Ghost (1990). One last thing, Pumbaa is the very first Disney character to exhibit flatulence!
Well, that’s all for today! I hoped you found this interesting and learned a lot more about the making of one of Disney’s greatest masterpieces. Let me know what other animated features you’d like for me to cover in the future.
Until then, Hakuna Matata!
Supreme Dream Machine 