The Lion King (1994)

Description: A young lion prince is cast out of his pride by his cruel uncle, who claims he killed his father. While the uncle rules with an iron paw, the prince grows up beyond the Savannah, living by a philosophy: No worries for the rest of your days. But when his past comes to haunt him, the young prince must decide his fate: Will he remain an outcast or face his demons and become what he needs to be?

Directors: Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff
Writers: Irene Mecchi (screenplay by), Jonathan Roberts
Stars: Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons, James Earl Jones

Photos:

Trivia:

The team working on the film was supposedly Disney’s “team B,” who were “kept busy” while “team A” worked on Pocahontas (1995), on which the production had much higher hopes. As it turned out, “The Lion King” became a huge critical and commercial success, whereas “Pocahontas” met with mixed reviews and a much lower box office.

A few weeks before the film opened, Elton John was given a special screening. Noticing that the film’s love song had been left out, he successfully lobbied Jeffrey Katzenberg to have the song put back in. Later, “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” won him an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Frank Welker provided all the lion roars. Not a single recording of an actual lion roaring was used because the producers wanted specific sounding roars for each lion.

Unlike the other lions, Scar’s claws are always displayed throughout the movie.

In early drafts, Scar was a rogue lion with no relation to Mufasa. Eventually, however, the story writers thought relating him to Mufasa would be more interesting, a threat within. This is why Scar and Mufasa differ so much; they weren’t originally designed to be related.