The Lion King: 13 Untold Stories and Fun Factoids

The Lion King is a timeless favorite of our family. Recently we set up under the stars and watched it by campfire. Hakuna matata!

[This is Part 2 of our discussion on the CTNx round table “Late Night with “Lion King” – A Celebration of “The Talent.” Read Part 1 here.]

Last November, several key players held a round table discussion at CTNX called “Late Night with “Lion King” – A Celebration of “The Talent.” They shared key insights to the film’s creation and success as well as several behind the scenes stories.

Here’s a list of funny and interesting production factoids from the discussion…

• In LA, they used a 7 year male lion named Joseph to sketch from. Deja noted that he touched the lion with his left hand because he draws with his right hand.
• During production hurricane Andrew devastated the Miami zoo.
• On the west coast, the LA team went to the San Diego Zoo to a rescue reserve for large cats run by a lady who had a hundred cats including lions, tigers, ligers, and 2 elephants.
• Another very prevalent visual feature in Africa that didn’t make it’s way into the film was animal poop…everywhere. Duly noted by the visual development team, but not helpful to the story.
• Katzenburg got semi-attacked by a lion during a press conference and was knocked down.
• During 2 other large press events a giraffe went to the bathroom on stage.
• There was a CG wildebeest crew led by Scott Johnson.
• 2D/CG matching had not been done with characters on a large scale prior to that sequence.
• “He’s Got it All Worked Out”, a song hated by the directors, was replaced by Hakuna Matata, but found it’s way back into the 3rd film.
• The bug eating number originally got shot down.
• Joe Williams, son of famous composer John Williams, did the singing voice for adult Simba.
• The actor who voiced Scar (Jeremy Irons) chain smoked thru every recording session.
• In one recording session Irons recorded a long take that was scratched because his stomach was growling.