My Lion King Forum

I'm not sure if this has been put up yet, if so please feel free to lock.

This was the early draft for The Lion King, in 1990 called "King of Beasts" Pretty cool!
https://sites.google.com/site/disneylionking1990script/home/The%20Lion%20King_JT%20Allen%20%26%20Ron%20Bass_original%20movie%20script_5-23-90.pdf?attredirects=0

OMG. Talk about a great find
I haven't seen this before. Thank you for sharing.
I've only read the first page, but it already looks interesting.
Simba talking during the Circle of Life? Diku? Dwala? "Mature Lion"?
Baasho and Banagi the Hyenas?
I also notice how Simba uses "Papa" instead of "Dad"

Also, This is EPIC!

Yeah, this is really weird compared to what we have now. Simba having two girls (one being a zebra XD) fighting for him? And Mufasa's death is much more dark and fast-paced then in the movie.

I had trouble following it. I especially had trouble understanding what was going on when Nala was calling Scar "My lord" and so on.

Woah! Nice epic find, Pocahontas! Thank you for sharing this with us!

I might as well share this screenplay, but I'm sure you all have seen this script before; it was printed in August 1993: http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Lion-King,-The.pdf It's more closer to the finalized version.

I was just told on tumblr that an artist on dA found this script three days ago, her name was maerafaye. Not sure where abouts she was talking about it but that's all I know... Dunno who found it if that's not the case but there was a post on tumblr 3 days ago with the link to it so it's not a recent find. It looks like an awesome story, haven't read it all yet. Too busy

Simba: Want to play "King of Beasts"?
Nala: How do we play that?
Simba: I go to sleep and you hunt me up something to eat.

That cracks me up! It's the truth.

This is a really interesting read, thanks for sharing it!

Another interesting, but sad fact is that the working title that Disney originally proposed was "King of the Jungle" which they changed because there are no lions in jungles. There were - until humans hunted them to extinction in those areas.

I remember coming across this early version long ago. Amazing how much the movie changed over its production life cycle.

I've read through both of these scripts, and I've got to say that these are not exactly kid-friendly. This is some really dark, violent stuff, and some of the lines I just could not imagine coming out of some of the characters' mouths (not in their finalized forms, anyway):

[quote]SIMBA (to Scar): I think you're fat. And useless. And deserve to die.[/quote]

But my gosh, the image of those two spinster ratels (honey badgers) nursing Zazu back to health is so adorable...I may have to draw fan art of that someday.


By the way, anyone remember a lioness named Naanda that was mentioned in the TLK Blu-Ray's special features and said to be Sarabi's sister?

Well, according to one of these scripts, not only is she Sarabi's sister...

...but also NALA'S MOTHER.


(The 5-23-90 script merely calls Naanda Nala's mother while 1-19-90 script says she is both Nala's mother and Sarabi's sister. The 1-19-90 script constantly calls Simba and Nala cousins and never outright mentions them becoming mates.)

^Well, here the January 19, 1990 script if anyone wants to read it. Also, note it is titled The Lion King.

Here's the link: https://sites.google.com/site/disneylio ... edirects=0