My Lion King Forum

"The Lion King" had been went into a great production and has dominated Disney's animation empire. The characters were drawn so nice, the animators did good jobs on the characters, the background settings were fit for the tone of the the movie, the wildebeest stampede was a climax in the film and the music was heartwarming and adventurous.

Ye... So what are you asking?

Actually... not.

When The Lion King was being produced, there was another sure-to-dominate Disney movie being made at the same time: Pocahontas. Therefore, when The Lion King was still fairly fresh, quite a few members on the production team jumped ship (pun intended) from TLK to Pocahontas.

And throughout its production cycle, it was repeatedly stated that people felt like Pocahontas was going to be THE BIG THING, while The Lion King was just the Disney "B" movie. So they had fun with it, and did what they felt like. And nearing the end of the production, the team started to feel like they really had a movie, and went all out to make it the best they can (such as completely changing the entire intro to Circle of Life only)

Even then, when they finished the movie, it was still felt that The Lion King was either going to be a really huge hit, or a serious flop. Good thing it turned out to be the hit that it is.

At first, it wasn't even gonna be a musical, but Tim Rice said it had to be one. Second, it was almost named King of the Jungle (really lame). Third, the animators spent two weeks in Africa for inspiration and also found Lebo M. there, who helped a lot with the movie's music choruses. Fourth, The Lion King has the second highest grossing in the world for an animated movie (first is Toy Story 3) and is fourteenth in the world for the highest grossing movie. Fifth, like DGFone said, everyone thought TLK was gonna be a badish movie at first, but look at it now! Sixth, Elton John thought this movie was gonna put an end to his career, but ended up making him even more awesome and acknowledged. Seventh, 3 songs from TLK were nominated for Oscars (Circle of Life, Hakuna Matata, and Can you Feel The Love Tonight) and Can you feel the love tonight won an Academy Award for Elton John. Eighth, Pumba was the first Disney character ever to fart. TLK wins at life. Enough said.

[quote="Tacobell Lion"] Third, the animators spent two weeks in Africa for inspiration and also found Lebo M. there.
[/quote]
Actually, no. Lebo M. was a friend of Hans Zimmer, the composer of the score

Oh God, my pedantic side is taking over. Sorry

[quote="Ninaroja"]

Actually, no. Lebo M. was a friend of Hans Zimmer, the composer of the score

Oh God, my pedantic side is taking over. Sorry [/quote]

Whoops! You're right. My bad.

[quote="DGFone"]

And throughout its production cycle, it was repeatedly stated that people felt like Pocahontas was going to be THE BIG THING, while The Lion King was just the Disney "B" movie.
[/quote]

Yeah, I read somewhere that Jeffery Katzenberg thought that Pocahontas would get them another nomination for best picture at the Academy awards the way Beauty and the Beast did.

It feels funny to think that people thought that way cause we now know TLK was amazingly successful while Pocahontas wasn't very well recieved