Media Essays: The History of The Lion King (30th Anniversary Special)

Damn, my favourite movie is officially THIRTY YEARS OLD?!?!?! And coincidentally enough, that's as old as I am too. We're oooooooooooooold! XD

Ladies and gentlemen, media fans of all ages, today is a momentous occasion. Thirty years ago on this very day, Disney took the world by storm with the release of their animated masterpiece, The Lion King. To say this movie was a hit is putting it VERY lightly. This movie was a pop-culture juggernaut the same way that Frozen was in the 2010's. This movie captured the hearts of audiences everywhere with its timeless coming-of-age story, memorable characters, fun musical numbers and epic scope that took what should've been a simple talking animals story and made it some like the biggest thing ever. The Lion King was a giant hit upon its release with critical praise from critics and audiences, a worldwide total of $968.4 million at the Box Office and it spawned a franchise that has seen TV spin-offs, two direct-to-video sequels, theme park rides, video-games, an all-CGI remake and even its own Broadway musical that is still running to this day both on Broadway in the US and at the West End in the UK. Thirty years later and this movie is STILL greatly beloved by fans and audiences everywhere and the movie is seen as animation royalty. So much so that in 2016, the movie was selected for preservation at the US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

So yeah, this film's legacy cannot be stated enough on how big it is. This one of the most legendary movies ever made, not just from Disney, but from cinema in general. And in deserves something special for its 30th anniversary in honour of all that. And how will I celebrate this momentous occasion? By telling you all the story of how the movie was made of course! It's been a while since I've done a history essay, so why not do one on my favourite movie?

Let's go back in time readers and retrace the film's steps. This is the story of how The Lion King came to be...

Where Did The Idea Come From?

It never ceases to fascinate me on how The Lion King was viewed by the Walt Disney Company at the time of its production. Described as "Bambi in Africa", The Lion King found itself in an interesting position in where after the release of Aladdin, Disney was working towards their next big hit. The Disney Renaissance was in its prime at the time with The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin all being runaway successes both critically and financially and the films put Disney back on the map after they suffered a slump due to the passing of Walt Disney in 1966. It was at that time that the new generation of Disney artists and animators proved they could take over from the old and that they could make mega-hit movies the way Uncle Walt and the Nine Old Men once did. So with Aladdin's success, Disney had two projects on the way for their future releases. One was a film (loosely) based on the real-life history of Pocahontas and the other was The Lion King. Disney had their A-team working on Pocahontas for they believed it was their next big hit. Beauty and the Beast was the movie that got a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars, Pocahontas was seen as the movie that would win that award. The Lion King on the other hand was seen as the appetizer before the main course, nothing more than a simple "talking animals" movie that wouldn't be all that special. Heh, how funny this all sounds in hindsight, am I right...?

However, Disney's B-team were still very much willing to work on this project with many of the crew being people that either saw the potential the movie had or they just really wanted to animate animals. If I were working for Disney at the time, that'd pretty much be my reason to work on the movie too because who wouldn't want to animate animals? Anyway, the A-team worked on Pocahontas with the B-team working on The Lion King. So where did this movie even come from? Well...there's some disputes on where exactly the idea for the movie came from. It supposedly originated from a chat between Roy E. Disney, Jeffery Katzenberg and Peter Schneider in where they were brainstorming ideas for a movie and one idea that came up was an idea for a movie set in Africa. Another source suggests that the idea came up during a conversation with the trio on a flight to Europe during a promotional tour. Katzenberg was immediately onboard with the idea of a movie in Africa and he set to work on developing the story. Interestingly enough, he took inspiration from his own life when working on it, adding elements involving coming of age and death and ideas from his own personal life experiences, namely some of his trials during his political career. He even said the film is "a little bit about himself" when describing it.

Whichever one is true, I imagine it might be a bit of both for how the idea came out. Anyway, they have an idea which is essentially "Bambi in Africa". Now how will the story play out? Let's find out as we cover...

Original Drafts and What Could've Been

As is the case with any movie, The Lion King had a few different drafts on what it would've been like.

On October the 11th, 1988, Thomas Disch (best known as the author of The Brave Little Toaster) had a meeting with Roy E. Disney and then vice president for Walt Disney Feature Animation's creative affairs Charlie Fink to discuss the idea of The Lion King. A month later, he wrote a nine-paged treatment titled King of the Kalahari. He wasn't the only one to do so as throughout 1989, several Disney staff writers also wrote treatments for the project. One such writer, Jenny Tripp, wrote a treatment dated March the 2nd 1989 and it was in that particular treatment where the name "Simba" was introduced for the main character. Jenny's treatment also included a concept which saw Simba separated from his pride and adopted by Kwashi, a baboon, and Mabu, a mongoose with a community of baboons raising him up and after a battle with an evil jackal named Ndogo, he finally reunites with his pride.

Charlie Fink recruited his friend, J. T. Allen, to develop new story treatments later that same year with Fink and Allen making several trips to a Los Angeles zoo to observe animal behaviour. Some of their observations would be featured in the script. Allen completed his version of the script, which was titled The Lion King, on January the 19th 1990. Fink, Katzenberg and Roy E. Disney felt that Allen's script could've benefited from a more experienced screenwriter, so they turned to Ronald Bass for help. Ronald had recently won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the 1988 movie Rain Man, so it's fair to assume he would be the kid of guy to help with that. However, Bass was preoccupied at the time so he couldn't rewrite the script himself. He did at least agree to supervise the revisions. Come May the 23rd 1990, a new script was completed with Allen and Bass credited for the work and the movie was retitled King of the Beasts.

But there were still other people working on their own versions of the story too. One of whom was Linda Woolverton, one of the writers for Beauty and the Beast. She'd spent a year writing several drafts of the script with the title going from King of the Beasts to King of the Jungle. Her version of the movie was a doozy, let me tell you. It had a darker and grittier tone and the plot was about a battle between lions and baboons with Scar leading the latter. Simba would leave the kingdom and become a "lazy, slovenly, horrible character" due to manipulations from Scar, and all so he could be overthrown after coming of age. In this draft, Rafiki was originally a cheetah and Timon and Pumbaa were Simba's childhood friends. Gotta say, this would've been one heck of a different viewing experience compared to the final product, wouldn't it?

The director of Oliver & Company, George Scribner, was the initial director of the movie with Roger Allers, the lead story man on Beauty and the Beast, joining him. Allers worked with Scribner and Woolverton on the project, but had to leave temporarily to help rewrite Aladdin. He would return to The Lion King eight months later, and he brought Brenda Chapman and Chris Sanders with him. And yes, I mean the very same Chris Sanders who created and directed Lilo & Stitch. In October 1991, several of the lead crew members, including Allers, Scribner, Chapman, Sanders and a woman named Lisa Beene visited Hell's Gate National Park in Kenya in order to study the environment for the film and also gain an appreciation for it. Scribner would leave the project after six months of story development as a result of a clash he had with Allers and the producers. You see, he intended for the film to have a documentary-like approach that focused more on natural aspects, and he was just a teensy bit miffed that the producers and Allers decided to make the movie a musical instead. Kinda hard to imagine this movie without musical numbers, isn't it? So, because George left, Rob Minkoff replaced him as the new co-director in April 1992.

Producer of the film, Don Hahn, joined the production because Thomas Schumacher was promoted to Vice President of Development for Walt Disney Feature Animation, and when he joined the production, he had some problems with the story. He found the script to be unfocused, lacking a clear theme and he would ask for a final retool after establishing the main theme of leaving childhood and facing the realities of the world. Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff, Brenda Chapman and Don Hahn rewrote the story across two weeks of meetings with directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale, both of whom had finished directing Beauty and the Beast by then. One of the definite ideas to stem from this meeting was the scene where Mufasa returns as a ghost. It was also Allers who made the change to Rafiki's character, going from a serious court advisor to a wacky shaman. The title was also changed from King of the Jungle back to The Lion King because as anyone with even the faintest knowledge of the animal kingdom can tell you, LIONS DO NOT LIVE IN JUNGLES. They live in the savannah, so a title like King of the Jungle doesn't really make sense. It was also decided at that meeting that Mufasa and Scar would be brothers as the writers felt the threat would be more interesting for the story if it came from 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". Funny when you consider how often this movie is compared to Hamlet. He suggested modelling the story on King Lear while Maureen Donley, an associate producer, stated the story resembled Hamlet. Allers recalled Katzenberg asking the crew to "put in as much Hamlet as you can" but they felt it was too forced in the end, so they had to look to other heroic archetypes such as the stories of Joseph and Moses from the Bible instead. And I remind you people, these guys were making a movie about talking lions at the time. XD

Linda Woolverton left the production to work on the Broadway adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, so Allers and Minkoff met with numerous other screenwriters to discuss writing the new screenplay. Some of those include Billy Bob Thornton, a prolific actor and filmmaker, and (I swear I'm not making this up)...Joss Whedon?! Huh, so the director of The Avengers and creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer could've potentially worked on this movie too, go figure...anyway, it was in the summer of 1992 when Irene Mecchi was hired as the new screenwriter with Jonathan Roberts joining her months later. Mecchi and Roberts took charge of the revision process. This included fixing unresolved emotional issues in the script and adding in comedic situations for Timon, Pumbaa and the hyenas.

So yeah, it sure took a lot of ideas, bringing people in and brainstorming just to settle on the movie's story, am I right? Now let's talk about...

Finding The Perfect Cast

This movie has quite a prolific cast with many big names behind it. When it came to casting the characters, the actors would be chosen based on how they fit and could add to the characters. One such example is James Earl Jones, whom was cast as Mufasa. The directors felt his voice was powerful, similar to a lion's roar, which was fitting for a grand king who leads the Pride Lands. And yet Jones himself remarked that during the years of production, Mufasa became "more and more of a dopey dad instead of a grand king". Can't say I can ever picture Mufasa with THAT kind of personality. XD

There's some interesting stories behind many of the actors chosen for this film. For instance, Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella auditioned for completely different characters at the time. Lane auditioned for Zazu and Sabella for one of the hyenas. When Lane and Sabella met at the recording studio, they were asked to record together as the hyenas. Their performances were so funny to the directors that they cast the duo as Timon and Pumbaa instead. As for the hyenas, the directors intended to reunite the comedy duo Cheech & Chong for the characters. However, only Cheech Marin (whom was previously in another Disney movie as Tito the Chihuahua in Oliver & Company) could make it at the time as Banzai while Tommy Chong was unavailable. So instead, they changed the character into a female hyena and Whoopi Goldberg was cast instead. She even INSISTED on being in the movie. I imagine she must've been quite enthusiastic about the idea of being a hyena in a Disney movie about talking lions. And who can blame her? I've have been enthusiastic too. XD

Interestingly enough, Rowan Atkinson, the voice of Zazu, was initially uninterested in the role for he wasn't that enthusiastic about doing voice work. He describes himself as a visual artist, if anything, and it seemed pointless to him. But his fellow friend and co-writer on Mr. Bean, Robin Driscoll, convinced Rowan to accept the role and he even came to view it as "a really, very special film" in retrospect. Nice to know he came to like it in the end. ^^

Matthew Broderick, the voice of adult Simba, was actually cast pretty early in production. So early in fact that he only reordered with another actor ONCE over the three years he worked on the film and he wasn't even aware that Moira Kelly, the voice of adult Nala, was in the movie until they attended the film's premiere. Bet that came as a surprise to him. XD What's also funny in hindsight is that when Matthew Broderick was cast, he initially thought he was working on some kind of American version of Kimba the White Lion. I say that in the sense that The Lion King has often been accused of ripping off Kimba, but that's another story...

When it comes to what could've been for the cast, an English double act of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer did audition for roles as a pair of chipmunks. While the producers were enthusiastic, Reeves and Mortimer were uncomfortable with their corporate attitude, and so the duo didn't take part in the movie. As for Scar, English actors such as Tim Curry, Malcolm McDowell, Alan Rickman, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were considered for him. I have to admit, I'm curious to imagine how Scar would've sounded voiced by either of them. Alan Rickman especially would've been cool to hear...but as we all know, Jeremy Irons ultimately got the part. Funny enough, he actually turned it down initially as he felt uncomfortable going to a comedic role after his dramatic portrayal of Claus von Bülow in the 1990 movie Reversal of Fortune. Speaking of that movie, Irons's performance inspired the writers to incorporate more of his acting from that movie into the script. Even the line "You have no idea" was a line that Irons's character in Reversal of Fortune said as well and was added in because of it.

Now let's talk about:

The Animation: How The Lion King Got Its Visual Flair

As mentioned before, The Lion King was pretty much Disney's side-project while Pocahontas was their next major movie and so most of the animators wanted to work on the latter instead of the former. Even Brenda Chapman was reluctant to work on The Lion King at the time due to feeling the story wasn't very good (oh the irony). As is, plenty of animators still wanted to work on the movie with most of the leading animators either doing their first major work supervising a character, or had much more interest in animating an animal. At least 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. More than 600 artists, animators and technicians contributed to the animation and artistry that we see in the final product and nearly twenty minutes of the movie was animated at the Disney-MGM studios facility, including the "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" sequence.

Remember how the film was pitched as "Bambi in Africa"? Well, they took a page out of Bambi's book and used real life references for the animals in the movie. Like how the Nine Old Men studied real deer for Bambi, they studied real lions for The Lion King. As you can see in the picture above, they really did have an actual lion there for reference! If that were me in their shoes, I don't know if I'd be terrified or awestruck. Maybe both! XD The lion was there on behalf of Jim Fowler, a renowned wildlife expert who would visit the studios on several occasions. He would bring an assortment of lions and other Savannah inhabitants to discuss behaviour and help the animators give some authenticity to their drawings. As well as that, the animators went to Miami MetroZoo under guidance from wildlife expert Ron Magill to study animal movements. The Pride Lands were modeled on the Kenyan national park that the crew visited.

You also may already know that this movie, while mostly hand-drawn, did have some computer animation in it took, namely during the famous wildebeest stampede. Due to how many wildebeest there were, there was no way they could realistically hand-draw every single wildebeest in the herd and have them stampede like so, hence CGI had to be used for it. The wildebeest were all created in a 3-D computer program, multiplied into hundreds, cel-shaded so they looked hand-drawn rather than CGI and given randomised paths down a mountainside so they could simulate the real, unpredictable movement of a herd. They also used a program known as the Computer Animation Production Systems, or the "CAPS" system for short. CAPS would help to simulate camera movements such as tracking shots, and also employed in adding colouring, lighting and particle effects. All this made the scene easier to animate, but it still took a long time to complete the whole thing, about two years to be precise.

The animators had a bit of a scare when the 1994 Northridge earthquake struck the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles just weeks before the film's release. Thankfully none of the staff members on the movie were victims of the quake, but the animators did end up having to finish their work remotely as they couldn't make it to the studio as a result of the quake. Thankfully, despite that shake-up (no pun intended) the animators were able to complete their work in time for the film's release. Before we cover that, we have a couple of last subjects to cover...

Making The Music

For the soundtrack of The Lion King, lyricist Tim Rice was invited to write the songs for the movie. Tim accepted on the condition that they also brought in a composing partner. He wasn't able to work with Alan Menken at the time as he was still working on Aladdin, which Tim Rice also worked on, so Rice had to work with someone else. Who did he get instead? None other than the Rocketman himself, Elton John. Interestingly, he did try to get Benny Andersson, one of the members of the band ABBA, but his commitments to the stage musical Kristina från Duvemåla meant he couldn't make it either. Could you imagine how strange the marketing would've looked it if said "Featuring songs by ABBA"? Elton John was enthusiastic about the project, expressing an interest in writing, as he put them, "Ultra-pop songs that kids would like' then adults can go and see those movies and get just as much pleasure out of them". He would cite The Jungle Book as a possible influence, feeling the music in that film was so funny and appealed to both kids and adults.

Together, Rice and John wrote five original songs for The Lion King with "Circle of Life", "I Just Can't Wait To Be King", "Be prepared", "Hakuna Matata" and "Can You Feel The Love Tonight". John would perform his own take on "Circle of Life" "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" and "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" with the last one being played over the end credits of the movie while the other two would feature on the soundtrack. There was a deleted song called "The Morning Report" which would be featured in the IMAX and DVD releases of the film, and it was also featured in the live musical version of the film. During production, there was going to be a musical number for Mufasa to perform, but that ultimately got scrapped. It's for the best I think as I really find it hard to imagine Mufasa of all people bursting into song. No, the Broadway musical doesn't count! =P

For the composer, they hired Hans Zimmer to compose the score. He'd worked on two films with African settings, A World Apart in 1988 and The Power of One in 1992, so he was likely chosen for that reason. He supplemented the score with traditional African music and choir elements arranged by Lebo M, the latter of whom provided the iconic opening chant for "Circle of Life". Zimmer's partners, mark Mancina and Jay Rifkin, helped with arrangements and song production.

An Unfortunate Passing

Unfortunately, tragedy struck the Disney Company on April the 3rd 1994 of 1994. The then president of the company, Frank Wells, died in a helicopter crash before the movie was completed. He was only 62 at the time. It was quite an unexpected event for the company and while many were shocked and mournful over the passing, Jefferey Katzenberg saw this as an opportunity to get the job that he wanted. He REALLY wanted to be president of the Walt Disney Company and be then CEO Michael Eisner's second-in-command and when the film was being released, he would promote not just The Lion King, but also HIMSELF and have the press try and play him up as "the next Walt Disney". Michael Eisner...wasn't too pleased about that. So despite what Katzenberg was hoping for, Eisner made it clear he would NEVER get the job he wanted, and so Katzenberg left Disney and would go on to found Dreamworks Animation as we know it. Pocahontas was the last movie he worked on for the company before he left, and even thenhe only partially worked on that one.

Can't say I feel bad for Jeffery here. I mean he was pretty much acting like a gigantic glory hound and using the previous president of the company's death as an opportunity for himself to get bigger. No s*** he didn't get the job he wanted! I sure as hell wouldn't have given him the job either if he did that at MY company! X( And he had the gall to be upset when Eisner didn't approve of his behaviour? No wonder some people see you as a real-life Disney Villain sometimes Jeffery...

None of this hindered The Lion King's success in any way though...

Releasing An Unexpected Hit

On November 1993, the Walt Disney Company released the entire "Circle of Life" segment as the film's first trailer. It was an effective hook in building anticipation for the film's release. And when it came out on June 15th 1994...well, you know the rest from here as I already covered the film's success beforehand. Released to critical acclaim and being a financial hit at the box office, The Lion King still remains as one of Disney's most successful movies ever made, so much so that even the all-CGI remake in 2019 was a massive hit with its box office gross crossing the billion-dollar mark! The stage show is still going even to this day and most of the franchise's earnings comes from the musical alone, and the movie itself still to this day regularly appears on best animated films lists or best Disney films lists.

But what's so funny to me is how this movie was the "B-movie" that nobody had any faith in while Pocahontas was seen as their next big success. And yet what happened in the end? The Lion King was the big success and Pocahontas was seen as the lesser movie, making less money by comparison and being less critically acclaimed. The Lion King remains a pop-culture icon and a mega-hit for Disney while Pocahontas is seen as the black sheep of the Disney Renaissance and is considerably less popular by comparison. Goes to show that you can never predict what will be a success or not...

And that's it, that's the history of The Lion King. It really shows a lot went on during the making of this movie, and it all paid off in the end for it gave us an amazing movie that still inspires and delights audiences even 30 years later. Happy Anniversary Lion King. Here's to the next 30 years and beyond...

And that's it for this history essay. I hope you found it interesting to read and enjoyed learning about the film's history. Next week, I'll be covering another robot from Robot Wars. Which one? Well, one with a bit of a lobster flavour to it... See you then media fans!