Anybody here watch the documentary "waking sleeping beauty"

[Elton John]

It deals with walt disney animation studios in the 80's up until the lion king. It was very eye opening into just how much trouble wdas was in pre the little mermaid.

This might not be from that documentary but i remember the producers of the lion king calling each other to tell them that the lion king was a major success the morning after opening day. 44 million i think? Not huge numbers by todays standards but todays ticket prices are higher. The movies success was not guaranteed, it was a major risk throughout the development process.

Nobody at wdas predicted that the lion king would become the highest grossing movie worldwide at nearly 800 million, which was an incredibly large amount higher than any other disney film released in the past.

[Captain Cupcake]

At one point during this video of the CTN animation expo event, they go a bit more in-depth about the early morning call concerning the film's opening performance: http://vimeo.com/42057516

[Elton John]

[quote="Captain Cupcake"]At one point during this video of the CTN animation expo event, they go a bit more in-depth about the early morning call concerning the film's opening performance: http://vimeo.com/42057516[/quote]


Just watched all of it, very fascinating!

[TheLionPrince]

[quote="Captain Cupcake"]At one point during this video of the CTN animation expo event, they go a bit more in-depth about the early morning call concerning the film's opening performance: http://vimeo.com/42057516[/quote]

Thanks for sharing this! It's always good to listen to discussions from the creators when I want to learn more about the behind-the-scenes of the production of the film.

And yes, I have seen Waking Sleeping Beauty, and I have a DVD copy of the film. I first watched it shortly after Christmas 2010, and I inspired once again about how massively successful The Lion King became on its initial release. I had already knew that the upper management at Disney such as Jeffrey Katzenberg didn't think highly of the film in comparison to Pocahontas from the bonus features on the Platinum Edition release, but I enjoyed watching footage of the premiere and news broadcasts of the film.

[quote="Elton John"]This might not be from that documentary but i remember the producers of the lion king calling each other to tell them that the lion king was a major success the morning after opening day. 44 million i think?[/quote]

Technically, The Lion King grossed $40.8 million on its opening wide weekend (not specifically on its first day), which was important at the time since one year earlier, Jurassic Park held the record as the film with the highest box office opening weekend at more than $47 million.