It finally happened: The new Lion King movie hit theaters in July 19, 2019. After a 25-year wait since the original, it became the highest-grossing animated film of all time. Here are the facts about the new Disney sensation.
1. The Voice of the Roar
Voice acting brings animated characters to life, and the new Lion King boasts a cast brimming with talented actors like Seth Rogen and Donald Glover to help us relive the beloved characters. The actors didn't just work on their voices, either: they'd often act out scenes together to get an idea of the flow of the plot as they went.
2. Sasha Fierce
Everyone knows that Beyonce Knowles-Carter is involved in the Lion King as the voice of Nala, but few know just how much she inspired the character. Lion King director John Favreau claims he even took inspiration from Beyonce's stage performances when it came to rendering the movement and personality of the lioness.
3. The Real Deal
The animators brought in real animals to the studio so that they could study their behavior and movements. This process helped immensely, serving as a reference to create the characters that folks see today.
4. Waka Waka
Lion King director Jon Favreau showed true dedication to his job. He went all the way to Africa with his team so that they could better understand the animals and landscape. “It was quite fascinating to me because I’d only seen these animals in zoos," he said. Apparently, it was incredibly to see "how they react[ed] around each other. Especially the lions.”
5. The Elephant in the Graveyard
One of the most famous scenes in the original Lion King was when Simba and Nala enter the “Elephant Graveyard.” Sadly, the iconic moment is not the same in the new film. The film's creators realized they couldn't recreate the scene as it was while still sticking to the realism of the new adaptation. Instead, they changed a few key details, like making the elephant bones smaller.
6. Now That’s Dedication!
Another famous Lion King scene is the wildebeest stampede—you know, the one that made us all cry when we were children. In the old film, this scene took THREE YEARS to create, even though the scene lasted just a handful of minutes.
7. Inseparable
Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen worked side-by-side for the entirety of their roles as Timon and Pumbaa, respectfully. The two had a blast together playing the iconic duo, and there are actually hours and hours of unused material that the two actors improvised while filming. Apparently Favreau joked that they could fill up an entire movie with it.
8. Imposter Syndrome
There was one thing Rogen and Eichner didn't exactly like about filming: singing with musician and actor Donald Glover, who voices Simba in the film. As Rogen said jokingly, "I hated it." He added, "It’s like playing basketball with Lebron James."
9. Making the Cut
Only four songs from the original made it into the new movie: "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," "Hakuna Matata," "I Just Can’t Wait to be King," and "Circle of Life." I’d say those are the good ones.
10. A Bonk on the Head
Contrary to popular belief, Rafiki is not a baboon. He's actually a mandrill, and the new film does even more to make his features more mandrill-like.
11. Modern Lionesses
The new Lion King didn't want to only recreate the original shot-for-shot, and they made several changes to update the film's plot as well as its animation. In the remake, the lionesses take more of a stand than they once did, and play a more pivotal role in the plot, most notably when Sarabi and Nala stand up for themselves.
12. Remember
One of the most impactful, tear-jerking moments is when Mufasa’s spirit appears to Simba in the clouds and tells him, “Remember who you are, you are my son, the one true king.” Just like with the Elephant Graveyard, this scene had to be adapted due to the photo-realism of the remake. Here, a storm helps create Mufasa's vague features; he's not a vision at all.
13. The Circle of Life
The film was dedicated to film editor Mark Livolsi, who died in September 2018. The Lion King was his final film.
14. The Legend Returns
Hans Zimmer composed the score of the original Lion King, and he was able to come back and compose the score for the remake. But the legendary composer is also legendarily tough. As he confessed, "I’m working my musicians to the bone because I want to get that performance. I want to smell sweat and blood in this studio."
15. No Worries
Fans have mixed feelings about the film. For one thing, Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 52% rating. But don't get too sad for Disney: the film raked in a record amount of money and is the ninth-highest grossing film of all time.
16. The Future of Film Making
Technology has come an awful long way since the 1994 original. The new Lion King creators actually shot the film with the help of a virtual reality program that had all the iconic backgrounds in it. They scoped out how everything looked with all the characters performing, and then used that to create the final cut of the film.
17. Power of the People
It took 130 animators hailing from 30 different countries to complete the massive work required of the film.
18. Laughing Hyenas
Though critics and audiences gave the film mixed reviews, one almost universally-beloved feature was seeing what the movie did with Scar's hyenas. Since the film needed photorealism, producers wanted the hyenas to be less humorous and more frightening. The animators brought out the creatures' dangerous attributes and vicious natures.
19. Shots for Days
There are 1,490 rendered shots in the film. Out of all of those shots, there is only one real one: at the beginning of the movie. It was taken in Africa, and Favreau claims he snuck the shot in just to see if anyone would notice, or if they could even tell the difference between the real thing and the computer-animated world he had created.
20. Baby Simba
A real baby lion named Bahati from the Dallas Zoo served as inspiration for Simba.
21. Welcome to the Jungle
There are a lot of animals in Africa, and the movie included a ton of them. How many? 86 different species, to be exact.
22. Is This a Lion I See Before Me?
As most people know, the original Lion King pulled some inspiration from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet to tell its story of family strife and deception. But Chiwetel Ejiofor, who played Scar, actually based his performance on Macbeth. According to Ejiofor, he wanted to think about how the desire to be king absolutely destroys Macbeth's mind.
23. That’s New
Those who watched the new film may have realized that there was a new song in the soundtrack, “He Lives in You.” This song, however, is not completely original. It made its debut in the Broadway adaptation of The Lion King.
24. Leaving a Scar
Jeremy Irons famously played the villainous voice for the original Scar in the hand-drawn film. When Disney announced that they were going to remake the movie, Irons was interested in reprising his role—but he was doomed to be disappointed. Instead, the role went to Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Irons later grumbled good-naturedly that they never asked him.
25. The Queen's Tears
Beyonce had a heartbreaking reason for working on the Lion King remake. She said it was the first Disney movie that made her cry.
26. The One True King
Donald Glover did a phenomenal job voicing Simba, but his time on the film was wracked with tragedy. Sadly, Glover’s father passed away the very day that The Lion King trailer was released. It was a horrible time for the actor and singer, but he did manage to pull some hard-won inspiration from the ordeal—and it changed the movie completely.
After experiencing such sadness, Glover realized he could now relate to Simba on an entirely different level. After all, they had both lost a father. Dedicated to his work, Glover actually called up director Favreau and asked to redo some of his lines. As Glover said, "I had to because I was like, I understand this in such a different way.” Bless him for doing so.
Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16