The Lion King

''The Lion King'' is a 1994 American animated musical coming-of-age drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, and produced by Don Hahn, the film's screenplay was written by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton, and features an ensemble voice cast consisting of Matthew Broderick, James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Moira Kelly, Niketa Calame, Nathan Lane, Ernie Sabella, Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin, Rowan Atkinson, and Robert Guillaume. The film follows a young lion, Simba, who must embrace his role as the rightful king of his homeland and confront his usurper, his uncle Scar.

''The Lion King'' was conceived during conversations among various Disney executives, to whom several writers submitted early treatments. Original director George Scribner had envisioned ''The Lion King'' as a nature documentary-style film, with Allers joining as co-director after having worked in the story departments of several successful animated Disney films. Considered to be Disney's first original animated film, ''The Lion Kings plot draws inspiration from several sources, notably William Shakespeare's play ''Hamlet''. Woolverton, screenwriter for Disney's ''Beauty and the Beast'' (1991), drafted early versions of ''The Lion King'''s script, which Mecchi and Roberts were hired to revise once Woolverton left to prioritize other projects. Scribner departed due to disagreements over the studio's decision to reimagine the film as a musical, with original songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, and Minkoff was hired to replace him in April 1992. Throughout production, the creative team visited Kenya for research and inspiration.

Released on June 15, 1994, ''The Lion King'' was praised by critics for its music, story, themes, and animation. With an initial worldwide gross of $763 million, it completed its theatrical run as the highest-grossing film of 1994 and the second-highest-grossing film of all time, behind ''Jurassic Park'' (1993). It held the title of highest-grossing animated film until it was replaced by ''Finding Nemo'' in 2003. The film remains the highest-grossing traditionally animated film of all time, as well as the best-selling film on home video, having sold over copies worldwide. It won two Academy Awards, as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. It is considered by many to be among the greatest animated films ever made.

The success of the film launched a multibillion-dollar franchise comprising a Broadway adaptation, two direct-to-video follow-ups, two television series, and a photorealistic remake (which itself spawned a prequel), which in 2019 also became the highest-grossing animated film at the time of its release. In 2016, ''The Lion King'' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot

In the Pride Lands of Tanzania, a pride of lions rules over the kingdom from Pride Rock. As the sun rises over the Pride Lands, King Mufasa and Queen Sarabi's newborn son, Prince Simba, is presented to the gathered animals by Rafiki, the mandrill who serves as the kingdom's shaman and advisor. However, Mufasa's younger brother, Scar, covets the throne and secretly plots to eliminate both Mufasa and Simba so that he may become king.

When Simba grows into a young cub, Mufasa shows him the Pride Lands and explains to Simba the responsibilities of kingship and the "circle of life," which connects all living things. But then Scar manipulates Simba into exploring an elephants' graveyard beyond the Pride Lands, which Mufasa forbade him to do so, stating that only the bravest lions go there. Wanting to prove his courage, Simba escapes Mufasa's majordomo, the hornbill Zazu and sneaks into the elephants' graveyard along with his best friend, Nala, though Zazu catches up to them. Upon arriving, however, the trio is chased by three spotted hyenas named Shenzi, Banzai and Ed. Zazu manages to alert Mufasa, and he arrives to chase the hyenas away. Though disappointed in Simba for disobeying him and endangering himself and Nala, Mufasa forgives him while teaching him the importance of bravery. He then explains that the great kings of the past watch over them from the night sky, from which he will one day watch over Simba. Meanwhile, Scar, who had orchestrated the hyenas' attack, convinces them to help him murder Mufasa and Simba in exchange for hunting rights in the Pride Lands.

The next day, Scar lures Simba into a gorge and signals the hyenas to drive a large herd of wildebeests into a stampede to trample him. Scar alerts Mufasa, who manages to save Simba and tries to escape the gorge; he begs Scar for help, but Scar betrays him by throwing him into the stampede to his death. Scar then deceives Simba into believing that Mufasa's death was his fault and tells him to leave the Pride Lands into exile and never return. He then orders the hyenas to kill Simba, but Simba escapes, and they decide not to tell him of it. Unaware of Simba's survival, Scar tells the pride that both Mufasa and Simba are dead, and steps forward as the new king, allowing the hyenas into the Pride Lands, much to the shock of the pride and the sadness of Rafiki.

Simba collapses in a desert from heat exhaustion, but is rescued by two other outcasts; a meerkat and a warthog named Timon and Pumbaa. Simba grows up with his two new friends in their jungle oasis" ("no worries" in Swahili). Years later, a young adult Simba rescues Timon and Pumbaa from a hungry lioness, who is revealed to be Nala. After reconciling, Simba and Nala end up falling in love, and she urges him to return home, telling him that the Pride Lands have become a desolate wasteland under Scar's reign. Still feeling guilty over Mufasa's death, Simba refuses and leaves angrily. He then encounters Rafiki, who tells Simba that Mufasa’s spirit lives on in him. Simba is then visited by the spirit of Mufasa in the night sky, who tells him that he must take his place as king. After Rafiki advises him to learn from the past instead of running from it, Simba decides to return to the Pride Lands.

Aided by his friends, Simba sneaks past the hyenas at Pride Rock and confronts Scar, who shames Simba over his supposed role in Mufasa’s death and corners him to the edge of Pride Rock. Just before he could throw him into a fire created by lightning, Scar arrogantly reveals to Simba that he killed Mufasa. Enraged, Simba retaliates and forces Scar to confess the truth to the pride. A battle ensues between the pride and the hyenas. Scar attempts to escape but is cornered by Simba at a ledge near the top of Pride Rock. Scar begs for mercy and attempts to deceive Simba by blaming his actions on the hyenas, who overhear him. Simba refuses to believe him, but spares Scar's life while banishing him from the Pride Lands forever. Scar pretends to accept this, but then attacks Simba. Following a brief battle, Simba throws Scar off the ledge. Scar survives the fall, but the hyenas, angry at him for betraying them, attack and maul him to his death.

With Scar and the hyenas gone, Simba takes his rightful place as king, with Nala as his queen. With the Pride Lands restored, Rafiki presents Simba and Nala's newborn cub to the assembled animals, thus continuing the circle of life.

Voice cast

* Matthew Broderick as Simba, a young lion crown prince, the son of Mufasa and Sarabi, who grows up to become the king of the Pride Lands. Rock singer Joseph Williams provided Simba's singing voice.
** Jonathan Taylor Thomas voiced young Simba, while Jason Weaver provided the cub's singing voice and Evan Saucedo also provided the cub's singing voice in " The Morning Report", a newly animated song which was added to the 2003 DVD Special Edition of ''The Lion King''.
* Jeremy Irons as Scar, Mufasa's younger brother and rival, and Simba's uncle, who plots to seize the throne of the Pride Lands. Jim Cummings partially provided Scar's singing voice for the song " Be Prepared".
* James Earl Jones as Mufasa, Simba's father, Scar's older brother, Sarabi's mate, and the king of the Pride Lands at the beginning of the film.
* Moira Kelly as Nala, Simba's childhood best friend, who later becomes his mate and the queen of the Pride Lands. Sally Dworsky provided her singing voice.
** Niketa Calame provided the voice of young Nala while Laura Williams provided her singing voice.
* Nathan Lane as Timon, a wise-cracking meerkat who becomes one of Simba's best friends.
* Ernie Sabella as Pumbaa, a naïve warthog who is Timon's best friend. He also becomes one of Simba's best friends.
* Robert Guillaume as Rafiki, an old mandrill who serves as the shaman of the Pride Lands and ceremonially presents the newborn cubs of the King and Queen to the gathered animals.
* Rowan Atkinson as Zazu, an uptight hornbill who serves as the majordomo to the King of the Pride Lands. Jeff Bennett provided Zazu's singing voice in " The Morning Report", a newly animated song sequence which was added to the 2003 DVD Special Edition of ''The Lion King''.
* Madge Sinclair as Sarabi, Mufasa's mate, Simba's mother, and leader of the lioness hunting party, as well as the queen of the Pride Lands at the beginning of the film.
* Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin, and Jim Cummings as the three leaders of a clan of spotted hyenas, and allies of Scar who participate in his plot in the death of Mufasa.
** Goldberg voices Shenzi, the sassy and short-tempered female leader of the trio.
** Marin voices Banzai, an aggressive and hot-headed hyena prone to complaining and acting on impulse.
** Cummings voices Ed, a dimwitted hyena who does not talk, only communicating through laughter.
*** Cummings also voiced a mole that talks with Zazu.
* Zoe Leader as Sarafina, Nala's mother, who is briefly shown talking to Simba's mother, Sarabi.

Additional voices

* Frank Welker (also provided lion roar sound effects)
* Cathy Cavadini
* Judi Durand
* David McCharen
* Linda Phillips
* Phil Proctor
* David Randolph

Production

Development

The origin of the concept for ''The Lion King'' is widely disputed. According to Charlie Fink (then-Walt Disney Feature Animation's vice president for creative affairs), he approached Jeffrey Katzenberg, Roy E. Disney, and Peter Schneider with a "''Bambi'' in Africa" idea with lions. Katzenberg balked at the idea at first, but nevertheless encouraged Fink and his writers to develop a mythos to explain how lions serviced other animals by eating them. Another anecdote states that the idea was conceived during a conversation between Katzenberg, Roy E. Disney, and Schneider on a flight to Europe during a promotional tour. During the conversation, the topic of a story set in Africa came up, and Katzenberg immediately jumped at the idea. Katzenberg decided to add elements involving coming of age and death, and ideas from personal life experiences, such as some of his trials in his career in politics, saying about the film, "It is a little bit about myself."

On October 11, 1988, Thomas Disch (the author of ''The Brave Little Toaster'') had met with Fink and Roy E. Disney to discuss the idea, and within the next month, he had written a nine-paged treatment entitled ''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. Tripp's treatment, dated on March 2, 1989, introduced the name "Simba" for the main character, who gets separated from his pride and is adopted by Kwashi, a baboon, and Mabu, a mongoose. He is later raised in a community of baboons. Simba battles an evil jackal named Ndogo, and reunites with his pride. Later that same year, Fink recruited his friend J. T. Allen, a writer, to develop new story treatments. Fink and Allen had earlier made several trips to a Los Angeles zoo to observe the animal behavior that was to be featured in the script. Allen completed his script, which was titled ''The Lion King'', on January 19, 1990. However, Fink, Katzenberg, and Roy E. Disney felt Allen's script could benefit from a more experienced screenwriter, and turned to Ronald Bass, who had recently won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for ''Rain Man'' (1988). At the time, Bass was preoccupied to rewrite the script himself, but agreed to supervise the revisions. The new script, credited to both Allen and Bass, was retitled ''King of the Beasts'' and completed on May 23, 1990.

Sometime later, Linda Woolverton, who was also writing ''Beauty and the Beast'' (1991), spent a year writing several drafts of the script, which was titled ''King of the Beasts'' and then ''King of the Jungle''. The original version of the film was vastly different from the final product. The plot 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. Simba would not only leave the kingdom but become a "lazy, slovenly, horrible character" due to manipulations from Scar, so Simba could be overthrown after coming of age. By 1990, producer Thomas Schumacher, who had just completed ''The Rescuers Down Under'' (1990), decided to attach himself to the project "because lions are cool". Schumacher likened the ''King of the Jungle'' script to "an animated ''National Geographic'' special".

George Scribner, who had directed ''Oliver & Company'' (1988), was the initial director of the film, being later joined by Roger Allers, who was the lead story man on ''Beauty and the Beast'' (1991). Allers worked with Scribner and Woolverton on the project, but temporarily left the project to help rewrite ''Aladdin'' (1992). Eight months later, Allers returned to the project, and brought Brenda Chapman and Chris Sanders with him. In October 1991, several of the lead crew members, including Allers, Scribner, Chapman, Sanders, and Lisa Keene visited Hell's Gate National Park in Kenya, in order to study and gain an appreciation of the environment for the film. After six months of story development work, Scribner decided to leave the project upon clashing with Allers and the producers over their decision to turn the film into a musical, since Scribner's intention was of making a documentary-like film more focused on natural aspects. By April 1992, Rob Minkoff had replaced Scribner as the new co-director.

Don Hahn joined the production as the film's producer because Schumacher was promoted to Vice President of Development for Walt Disney Feature Animation. Hahn found the script unfocused and lacking a clear theme, and after establishing the main theme as "leaving childhood and facing up to the realities of the world", asked for a final retool. Allers, Minkoff, Chapman, and Hahn then rewrote the story across two weeks of meetings with directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale, who had finished directing ''Beauty and the Beast'' (1991). One of the definite ideas that stemmed from the meetings was to have Mufasa return as a ghost. Allers also changed the character Rafiki from a more serious court advisor into a wacky shaman. The title was also changed from ''King of the Jungle'' to ''The Lion King'', as the setting was not the jungle but the savannah. It was also decided to make Mufasa and Scar brothers, as the writers felt it was much more interesting if the threat came from someone within the family. Allers and Minkoff pitched the revised story to Katzenberg and Michael Eisner, to which Eisner felt the story "could be more Shakespearean"; he suggested modeling the story on ''King Lear''. Maureen Donley, an associate producer, countered, stating that the story resembled ''Hamlet''. Continuing on the idea, Allers recalled Katzenberg asking them to "put in as much ''Hamlet'' as you can". However, they felt it was too forced, and looked to other heroic archetypes such as the stories of Joseph and Moses from the Bible. Aside from Disney's prior anthology films and ''The Rescuers Down Under'' (1990) (a sequel to ''The Rescuers'' (1977)), ''The Lion King'' was Disney's first animated feature film to feature an original story conception, although the final product was heavily modelled on ''Hamlet'', ''Joseph'' and ''Moses''. The story has also been compared to Shakespeare's lesser known plays ''Henry IV, Part 1'' and '' Part 2''.

By this point, Woolverton had left the production to work on the Broadway adaptation of ''Beauty and the Beast''. To replace her, Allers and Minkoff met with numerous screenwriters, including Billy Bob Thornton and Joss Whedon, to discuss writing the new screenplay. During the summer of 1992, Irene Mecchi was hired as the new screenwriter, and months later, she was joined by Jonathan Roberts. Mecchi and Roberts took charge of the revision process, fixing unresolved emotional issues in the script and adding comedic situations for Pumbaa, Timon, and the hyenas.

Lyricist Tim Rice worked closely with the screenwriting team, flying to California at least once a month, as his songs for the film needed to work in the narrative continuity. Rice's lyrics—which were reworked up to the production's end—were pinned to the storyboards during development. Rewrites were frequent, with animator Andreas Deja saying that completed scenes would be delivered, only for the response to be that parts needed to be reanimated because of dialogue changes. Due to the rewrites, ''The Lion King'' missed its initial release window for Thanksgiving 1993, with ''The Nightmare Before Christmas'' (1993) assuming its release slot. Hahn stated the film was delayed to a summer 1994 release, "with much consternation, because people said you can't release animation in the summertime."

Casting

The voice actors were chosen for how they fit and could add to the characters; for instance, James Earl Jones was cast because the directors found his voice "powerful" and similar to a lion's roar. Jones remarked that during the years of production, Mufasa "became more and more of a dopey dad instead of grand king".

Nathan Lane auditioned for Zazu, and Ernie Sabella for one of the hyenas. Upon meeting at the recording studio, Lane and Sabellawho were starring together in a Broadway production of ''Guys and Dolls'' at the timewere asked to record together as hyenas. The directors laughed at their performance and decided to instead cast them as Timon and Pumbaa. For the hyenas, the original intention was to reunite Cheech & Chong, but while Cheech Marin agreed to voice Banzai, Tommy Chong was unavailable. His role was changed into a female hyena, Shenzi, voiced by Whoopi Goldberg, who insisted on being in the film. The English double act Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer auditioned for roles as a pair of chipmunks; according to Mortimer, the producers were enthusiastic, but he and Reeves were uncomfortable with their corporate attitude and abandoned the film. Rowan Atkinson was initially uninterested in the studio's offer to voice Zazu, later explaining that "voice work is something I generally had never done and never liked ..I'm a visual artist, if I'm anything, and it seemed to be a pointless thing to do". His friend and fellow ''Mr. Bean'' writer/actor Robin Driscoll convinced him to accept the role, and Atkinson retrospectively expressed that ''The Lion King'' became "a really, very special film".

Matthew Broderick was cast as adult Simba early during production. Broderick only recorded with another actor once over the three years he worked on the film, and only learned that Moira Kelly voiced Nala at the film's premiere. English actors Tim Curry, Malcolm McDowell, Alan Rickman, Patrick Stewart, and Ian McKellen were considered for the role of Scar, which eventually went to fellow Englishman Jeremy Irons. Irons initially turned down the part, as he felt uncomfortable going to a comedic role after his dramatic portrayal of Claus von Bülow in ''Reversal of Fortune'' (1990). His performance in that film inspired the writers to incorporate more of his acting as von Bülow in the scriptadding one of that character's lines, "You have no idea"and prompted animator Andreas Deja to watch ''Reversal of Fortune'' and ''Damage'' (1992) in order to incorporate Irons' facial traits and tics.

Animation

The development of ''The Lion King'' coincided with that of ''Pocahontas'' (1995), which most of the animators of Walt Disney Feature Animation decided to work on instead, believing it would be the more prestigious and successful of the two. The story artists also did not have much faith in the project, with Chapman declaring she was reluctant to accept the job "because the story wasn't very good", and Burny Mattinson telling his colleague Joe Ranft: "I don't know who is going to want to watch that one." Most of the leading animators either were doing their first major work supervising a character, or had much interest in animating an animal. Thirteen of these supervising animators, both in California and in Florida, were responsible for establishing the personalities and setting the tone for the film's main characters. The animation leads for the main characters included Mark Henn on young Simba, Ruben A. Aquino on adult Simba, Andreas Deja on Scar, Aaron Blaise on young Nala, Anthony DeRosa on adult Nala, and Tony Fucile on Mufasa. Nearly twenty minutes of the film, including the "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" sequence, was animated at the Disney-MGM Studios facility. More than 600 artists, animators, and technicians contributed to ''The Lion King''. Weeks before the film's release, the 1994 Northridge earthquake shut down the studio and required the animators to complete via remote work.

The character animators studied real-life animals for reference, as was done for ''Bambi'' (1942). Jim Fowler, renowned wildlife expert, visited the studios on several occasions with an assortment of lions and other savannah inhabitants to discuss behavior and help the animators give their drawings authenticity. The animators also studied animal movements at the Miami MetroZoo under guidance from wildlife expert Ron Magill. The Pride Lands are modeled on the Kenyan national park visited by the crew. Varied focal lengths and lenses were employed to differ from the habitual portrayal of Africa in documentaries—which employ telephoto lenses to shoot the wildlife from a distance. The epic feel drew inspiration from concept studies by artist Hans Bacher—who, following Scribner's request for realism, tried to depict effects such as lens flare—and the works of painters Charles Marion Russell, Frederic Remington, and Maxfield Parrish. Art director Andy Gaskill and the filmmakers sought to give the film a sense of grand sweep and epic scale similar to ''Lawrence of Arabia'' (1962). Gaskill explained: "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 filmmakers also watched the films of John Ford and other filmmakers, which also influenced the design of the film.

Because the characters were not anthropomorphized, all the animators had to learn to draw four-legged animals, and the story and character development was done through the use of longer shots following the characters.

Computers helped the filmmakers present their vision in new ways. For the wildebeest stampede sequence, several distinct wildebeest characters were created in a 3D computer program, multiplied into hundreds, cel shaded to look like drawn animation, and given randomized paths down a mountainside to simulate the real, unpredictable movement of a herd. Five specially trained animators and technicians spent more than two years creating the two-and-a-half-minute stampede. The Computer Animation Production System (CAPS) helped simulate camera movements such as tracking shots, and was employed in coloring, lighting, and particle effects.

Music

Lyricist Tim Rice, who was working with composer Alan Menken on songs for ''Aladdin'' (1992), was invited to write songs for ''The Lion King'', and accepted on the condition of bringing in a composing partner. As Menken was unavailable, the producers accepted Rice's suggestion of Elton John, after Rice's invitation of ABBA fell through due to Benny Andersson's commitments to the stage musical ''Kristina från Duvemåla''. John expressed an interest in writing "ultra-pop songs that kids would like; then adults can go and see those movies and get just as much pleasure out of them", mentioning a possible influence of ''The Jungle Book'' (1967), where he felt the "music was so funny and appealed to kids and adults".

Rice and John wrote five original songs for ''The Lion King'' ("Circle of Life", "I Just Can't Wait to Be King", " Be Prepared", "Hakuna Matata", and "Can You Feel the Love Tonight"), with John's performance of "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" playing over the end credits. The IMAX and DVD releases added another song, "The Morning Report", based on a song discarded during development that eventually featured in the live musical version of ''The Lion King''. The score was composed by Hans Zimmer, who was hired based on his earlier work on two films in African settings, '' A World Apart'' (1988) and '' The Power of One'' (1992), and supplemented the score with traditional native African music and choir elements arranged by Lebo M. Zimmer said while uninterested at first due to a dislike of Broadway musicals, accepted the job to have a work he could watch with his daughter, and given he also lost his father as a child, used that as inspiration for the music regarding Mufasa's death. Zimmer's partners Mark Mancina and Jay Rifkin

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