As The Lion King turns 30, Hasitha Fernando looks at the story behind the Disney classic…
The Lion King is one of those animated features which had such a lasting impact and whose themes of love, friendship, and adventure gave it a universal appeal that brought in viewers of all ages. As the film celebrates its 30th anniversary we take a look at some interesting behind-the-scenes details of this unforgettable masterwork of animation…
It was Disney’s ‘B-Team’ that took on the challenge of making the movie
It’s hard to believe it but it’s true. Disney’s A-team was kept busy with the production of Pocahontas, since the studio had very high hopes for the property in terms of its prestige and its box-office potential. Because of this, the second tier animators over at Disney Feature Animation took on the task of developing The Lion King. Even the story artists who were involved with the production didn’t have faith in their project. However, when the film hit theatres, The Lion King turned out to be a massive critical and commercial success, whereas Pocahontas was met with mixed reviews and a significantly lower box-office.
More than 600 artists, animators, and technicians contributed to this monumental effort, and most of the leading animators fell into two categories: most were either doing their first major work supervising a character or possessed a keen interest in animating animals. Thirteen of these animators, both in California and in Florida, were responsible for establishing the personalities and setting the tone for the film’s main characters.
The original concept of the movie is widely disputed
Like any good story that churns out of Hollywood’s creative bowels the true origin of The Lion King too is one that is widely disputed. According to Charlie Fink, then vice-president for Creative Affairs over at Disney Feature Animation, he approached Jeffrey Katzenberg, Roy E. Disney, and Peter Schneider with the idea of “Bambi in Africa”, but with lions. Katzenberg wasn’t convinced Fink’s idea would translate to a good film but he nevertheless encouraged Fink to develop the story. Another anecdote describes the conception of the idea taking place between Katzenberg, Disney and Schneider during a flight to Europe where conversations of a story set in Africa came up which got Katzenberg’s creative cogs turning.
Finalizing the nitty gritties of the script wasn’t an easy feat
Now that the story beats were somewhat figured out, the next step for Disney was to develop a screenplay from it. But this proved to be quite a challenging affair as we will soon find out. Thomas Disch, author of The Brave Little Toaster met with Fink and Disney to discuss the details and eventually wrote a nine-paged treatment titled “King of the Kalahari”. Throughout 1989 several Disney staff writers including Jenny Tripp, Tim Disney, Valerie West and Miguel Tejada-Flores, had written treatments for the project, and it was Jenny Tripp’s treatment that first introduced the name “Simba” for the main character. After writer J. T. Allen took a stab at the property Ronald Bass, the Academy Award winning scribe of Rain Man helped retooled the script with Allen’s inputs and the project was retitled “King of the Beasts” at that point.
Sometime later Linda Woolverton who was penning the scrip of Beauty and the Beast, spent an entire year churning out multiple drafts of the script. Her version of the story centered on a battle between lions and baboons, with Scar being the leader of the baboons, Rafiki being a cheetah and Timon and Pumbaa being Simba’s childhood friends. The summer of 1992 saw the most progress to script development with the hiring of screenwriters Irene Mecchi and Jonathan Roberts. Mecchi and Roberts took charge of the revision process, fixing unresolved emotional issues in the script and added comedic situations for Pumbaa, Timon, and the hyenas. In the end it was Linda Woolverton, Irene Mecchi and Jonathan Roberts that received the “Screenplay By” credit for the movie.
Finding the right directors wasn’t a walk in the savannah either
George Scribner, who helmed the animated feature Oliver & Company, was the initial director attached to The Lion King. He was later joined by Roger Allers, the lead story man on Beauty and the Beast. Allers was a busy creative during this period, as he was helping rewrite Disney’s next hit Aladdin whilst working on The Lion King with Scribner and Woolverton. In October 1991 the trio and several lead crew members even visited Hell’s Gate National Park in Kenya, to study and gain an appreciation of the environs they were crafting for the film.
Scribner’s intention was to make The Lion King something like a documentary flick focusing more on nature but Allers and the producers of the effort wanted to incorporate more musical elements to the movie. This didn’t sit well with Scribner, so after six-months of story development he left the project and was replaced by animation director Rob Minkoff. The duo’s co-directing process began with several sequences being divided between himself and Allers so that each could bring their singular vision to the big screen. However, a constant exchange of ideas between the two took place, in order to ensure stylistic coherency. During a 2011 interview, Minkoff revealed that it was he who directed the poignant “Circle of Life” sequence while Allers was responsible for the multicolored freneticism of “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King”.
Voice actors were cast based on what they could add to the characters
To say the voice actors efforts on The Lion King was tremendous, would be an understatement of epic proportions. Instead of casting big name actors Disney went for character actors with voice acting talent so that they’d be able to bring something special to their respective characters. James Earl Jones who previously lend his voice for the iconic Star Wars villain Darth Vader was hired because the directors found his voice “powerful” and similar to that of a lion’s roar. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off star Matthew Broderick was cast as adult Simba early during production. Over the three years he worked on the film, the actor only once shared the recording booth with another cast member, and only learned Moira Kellya voiced Nala at the movie’s premier!
Jeremy Irons nabbed the role of Scar defeating the likes of Tim Curry, Malcolm McDowell, Alan Rickman, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. Comedians Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella, who initially auditioned as Zazu and a hyena respectively, were chosen to voice the dynamite duo of Timon & Pumbaa due to their great chemistry and comedic chops. Mr. Bean himself, Rowan Atkinson, was cast as the uber-talkative Zazu but the veteran comedian was initially uninterested in the job offer, however, his frequent collaborator Robin Driscoll convinced him to accept the role. The producers originally envisioned Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong to voice the hyenas Chong’s unavailability paved the way for Whoopi Goldberg’s casting as Shenzi, the female hyena.
Real-life animals were used as reference for the characters
As it was with Bambi back in 1942, the character animators studied real-life animals were used as reference, during the beginning of the design process. Renowned wildlife expert Jim Fowler organized several visits to Disney studios with an assortment of lions and other savannah inhabitants to discuss animal behavior and help the animators give their drawings and character designs a sense of authenticity. The animators also studied animal movements at the Miami Metro Zoo under the guidance of wildlife expert Ron Magill.
Lawrence of Arabia & John Ford westerns inspired the film’s artwork heavily
When one watches The Lion King one cannot help but captivated by the stunning artwork and the sweeping feel of the whole proceeding. Art director Andy Gaskill and the filmmakers sought to capture the same epic sense of scale that David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia possessed. During an interview Gaskill elaborated the creative process: “We wanted audiences to sense the vastness of the savannah and to feel the dust and the breeze swaying through the grass. In other words, to get a real sense of nature and to feel as if they were there. It’s very difficult to capture something as subtle as a sunrise or rain falling on a pond, but those are the kinds of images that we tried to get.” The epic feel drew further inspiration from concept studies by artist Hans Bacher and the works of painters like Charles Marion Russell, Frederic Remington, and Maxfield Parrish. The filmmakers also watched old Westerns of John Ford which also influenced the overall design of the film.
The breathtaking stampede sequence too three years to animate
One of the breathtaking and emotion laden centerpieces of The Lion King was the stampede sequence featuring a herd of wildebeest careening towards a gorge with a naive Simba in it. The complex animation sequence took the Disney CG department a whopping three years to animate. In fact, to bring the stunning set piece to life a new computer program had to be written by the CG department which allowed hundreds of computer generated wildebeest to stampede without chaotically colliding with each other.
Hans Zimmer delivered an absolute masterful score for The Lion King
Hans Zimmer was an up-and-coming talent back in the early 90s when he got the call from Disney to compose the score for their latest venture – The Lion King. Zimmer’s hiring was based on the strength of two of his earlier works – A World Apart and The Power of One – which took place in a similar African setting. The composer further bolstered his beautiful score with traditional African music and choir elements arranged by South African musician Lebo M.
The original motion picture soundtrack, which featured Zimmer’s contributions as well as those of British singer Elton John and the rest of the voice cast, became the fourth-best-selling album of the year on the Billboard 200 and the top-selling soundtrack of that year. It is the only soundtrack to an animated film to be certified Diamond (10× platinum) by the Recording Industry Association of America. The complete instrumental score by Zimmer, however, was only released two decades later to commemorate the 20th anniversary re-release in 2014.
Critical acclaim, commercial fame & multiple award wins
Produced on a budget of $45 million, The Lion King grossed $422.8 million in North America and $545.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $968.5 million. After its initial run, having earned $763.5 million, it ranked as the highest-grossing animated film of all time, the highest-grossing film of Walt Disney Animation Studios, and the highest-grossing film of 1994. The effort still remains the highest-grossing hand drawn animated movie of all time.
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has an approval rating of 93% with an average score of 8.4/10 with its critical consensus reading, “Emotionally stirring, richly drawn, and beautifully animated, The Lion King stands tall within Disney’s pantheon of classic family films.” Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half stars out of a possible four and called it “a superbly drawn animated feature”. He further added that, “The saga of Simba, which in its deeply buried origins owes something to Greek tragedy and certainly to Hamlet, is a learning experience as well as an entertainment.” Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly also praised the flick, writing that it “has the resonance to stand not just as a terrific cartoon but as an emotionally pungent movie”.
At the 67th Academy Awards ceremony The Lion King received multiple nominations in the Best Original Song category for Elton John and Tim Rice, and also nabbed a nomination for Best Original Score. Quite deservingly Zimmer walked away with the golden nudie for Best Original Score and the team of John and Rice won Best Original Song for “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”.
Sequels, prequels, spin-offs & much more
The movie’s success led to two direct-to-video films titled The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride (1998) and The Lion King 1 ½ (2004) and one spin-off TV show called The Lion King’s Timon & Pumbaa which ran for three seasons between 1995 and 1999. The Lion Guard was another animated TV series based on the IP that debuted on Disney Junior in 2015 which followed Simba’s second-born cub Kion.
With the smashing success of 2016’s The Jungle Book Walt Disney Pictures wanted to give The Lion King the same CGI treatment as well and with a top-notch cast and director Jon Favreau on board they did indeed deliver the goods, in the form of a massive $1.633 billion box-office win. This year will see the latest installment of the franchise debut with Mufasa: The Lion King hitting theatres at Christmas.
Looking at the critical and commercial success of the franchise there is no doubt that The Lion King is still one of Disney’s strongest IPs, and the longevity and staying power of the property is owed singlehandedly to the impact the original animated feature had on audiences in the first place.
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Hasitha Fernando is a part-time medical practitioner and full-time cinephile. Follow him on Twitter via @DoctorCinephile for regular updates on the world of entertainment.
