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The Lion King is the Walt Disney Company's 32nd animated film, and one of its most successful. It was originally released on June 15, 1994 and later re-released in IMAX format in 2003.
The movie is about a young lion cub named Simba who learns about his place on the throne of Pride Rock and his role in the circle of life. Unlike previous Disney animated films, much of the voice acting work was done by well-known actors, including James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons, Matthew Broderick, Moira Kelly, Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Muran, Rowan Atkinson, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Robert Guillaume, and Nathan Lane. It is a musical; the songs have music by Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice.
The Lion King, though very humanistic story, remains the only Disney film to have absolutely no trace of human existence. Robin Hood featured only anthropomorphized animals, while Bambi featured only unseen human characters; whether this makes The Lion King Walt Disney's first "non-human animals-only" film is open to interpretation, but it is one film that is free of human elements.
Computer animation was used extensively in the creation of the movie, especially during the "Circle of Life" and the technologically innovative stampede sequences.
During production, this film was considered a secondary project compared to the next film scheduled, Pocahontas. However, as the film was being marketed, the studio noticed that the released teaser which consisted of the entire opening sequence featuring the song, Circle of Life, was getting a strongly enthusiastic reaction from audiences. Furthermore, when the film was in limited release in two major theatres, the film did very impressive business which suggested that this "secondary project" promised to be popular. Upon general release, the film more than confirmed that suspicion by becoming the most successful film of the year and the most successful animated feature film of all time.
Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.
Simba's father Mufasa, the king of the Pride Lands, is murdered by his own brother and Simba's uncle, Scar, who then convinces Simba that Mufasa's death was Simba's fault and encourages the young cub into self-imposed exile ("Run away, Simba. Run... Run away and never return."). Scar reports Mufasa's and Simba's "accidental" death, becomes king, and overruns the Pride Lands with his gang of vicious hyenas.
After wandering in the desert, the young cub befriends a meerkat named Timon and a warthog named Pumbaa. After growing up with Timon and Pumbaa, Simba's childhood friend Nala eventually finds him. She urges Simba to return to Pride Rock and to retake his rightful throne, but he refuses. After Rafiki the baboon shows Simba that Mufasa's spirit still lives on inside him, Simba goes back to Pride Rock to defeat his uncle Scar and the hyenas so he can reclaim his kingdom.
The plot bears similarities to Shakespeare's play Hamlet.
The Lion King was so successful that Disney (though not the original Lion King team) created a direct-to-video sequel called The Lion King II: Simba's Pride (1998), focusing on Simba's daughter Kiara. A spin-off television series called Timon and Pumbaa focused on the Meerkat and Warthog duo, and inferred taking place in the mid Twentieth Century due to the appearance of humans, human clothing and technology. A second direct-to-video sequel, The Lion King 1 1/2, was released on February 10, 2004, and takes place on a parallel time line that interweaves with the original Lion King, but from Timon and Pumbaa's perspective.
The original movie was remastered and, on October 7, 2003, released as The Lion King 2-Disc Special Edition DVD. The Lion King II: Simba's Pride also celebrated a 2 disc Special Edition re-release on August 31, 2004.
The movie was also adapted into an award-winning Broadway stage musical with the same title. The stage show first opened on November 13, 1997 in New York City, and was an instant and tremendous success. A version later opened London, England, and another in Toronto, playing there until January 2004. It is also now playing in Sydney, Australia.
The movie has had its share of controversy.
There was a dispute over the origin of the story, as it bears a to a Japanese animated television show Kimba the White Lion, so much so that apparently even some animators thought they were doing a remake. The directors Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, however, reported they were well into the development process before someone pointed out the Kimba similarity.
There was also some criticism from the gay community regarding a perceived effeminate undertone to the movie's villain, Scar.
In one scene of the movie it appears as if animators had embedded the word "sex" into several frames of animation—the intention, however, was the letter combination "SFX" (for "special effects"), sort of an innocent "signature" signed by the effects team to the work they did.
The use of the song, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" has led to disputes between Disney and the family of South African Solomon Linda, who composed the song (originally titled "Mbube") in 1939. In July 2004 the family filed suit, seeking $1.6 million in royalties.
In the musical remake there was a scene removed from the American version when Mufasa dies where the lionesses cry over his dead body but had appeared to be more comical as it had looked like they were crying out toilet paper, which had caused the audience to laugh at the inappropriate moment. Actually, they were re-enacting a Japanese puppet mourning ceremony where ribbons would flow out of the eyes to symbolize tears; this is also a convention of Japanese anime. The section is still in the Australian version and receives the same amount of laughter as in the original. This convention is used to greater effectiveness in the stage musical directed by Julie Taymor.
Also there was controversy in the Australian version when the two child leads of Simba and Nala were fired due to bad acting, lack of singing talent and inconsistent American accent.
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