How many of these 20 facts about the original "The Lion King" do you know?

There are, perhaps unsurprisingly, multiple stories about the origin of the idea of “The Lion King.” Charlie Fink, VP of creative affairs for Disney animation, says he pitched “’Bambi’ with lions” to the Disney bigwigs, including Jeffrey Katzenberg. Katzenberg, though, says the idea of a movie set in Africa came up between him and the brass during a flight, and Katzenberg would put some of his own personality and life experiences into the project.

The first treatment for what would become “The Lion King” was delivered to Disney in 1988. At that time, it was called “King of the Kalahari.” Then, several others took a shot at fleshing out the script. Jenny Tripp’s 1989 screenplay first introduced the name Simba, and J.T. Allen’s script delivered in January 1990 was the first to be titled “The Lion King.”

Linda Woolverton, who wrote the screenplay for the super-successful “Beauty and the Beast,” was given a chance to deliver several drafts of Disney’s lion picture. We say “lion picture,” because she turned in drafts called “King of the Beasts” and “King of the Jungle.” Also, in her story, there was a war between the lions and the baboons, with Scar being the leader of the baboons.

George Scribner, who had directed “Oliver & Company,” was the first director attached to the film. He would be joined by Roger Allers (it’s quite common for animated features to have multiple directors). At this time, “The Lion King” was not a musical. In fact, producer Thomas Schumacher described it as, “an animated ‘National Geographic’ special.”

As the process went along, Allers and the producers came to like the idea of “The Lion King,” like the recent run of successful Disney movies, being a musical. Scribner was not on board with this, and decided to leave the movie. He was replaced by Rob Minkoff, who would co-direct with Allers.

Discussing the project in the wake of Minkoff signing on and the idea of a musical being agreed upon, the film started to get fleshed out. During this time, the idea of Mufasa returning as a ghost emerged, and also of Scar being a lion and Mufasa’s brother. Michael Eisner pitched in the notion of making it more Shakespearean, and many do compare it to “Hamlet.” Oh, and the title was changed from “King of the Jungle” to “The Lion King” since, you know, the movie isn’t set in the jungle.

By the time the producers and directors had settled on the plan for “The Lion King,” rewrites were needed. However, Woolverton was working on adapting “Beauty and the Beast” to Broadway by this point. Many screenwriters were interviewed (including reportedly Billy Bob Thornton and Joss Whedon) before Irene Mecchi and Jonathan Roberts were hired. Additionally, Tim Rice was hired to write the lyrics for the songs.

Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella were doing “Guys and Dolls” together on Broadway, and they both auditioned for “The Lion King.” However, Lane was auditioning to play Zazu, while Sabella was up for the role as one of the hyenas. They were asked to record together as hyenas, and it went well enough, and was funny enough, it was decided Lane and Sabella would voice the comedic duo of Timon and Pumbaa.

“The Lion King” may have gotten Lane and Sabella, but they had bigger ambitions. Originally they wanted to have Cheech and Chong play the hyenas. Cheech Marin did indeed sign on to voice Banzai, but Tommy Chong was not available. Thus, his character was rewritten to be female and Whoopi Goldberg was cast. Later Jim Cummings would be added to voice the “dumb” hyena Ed.

Disney clearly wanted a British actor to voice Scar, perhaps to play up the Shakespeare of it all. Tim Curry, Alan Rickman, and the future “X-Men” duo of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were all considered. Ultimately, Jeremy Irons took the role after some hesitancy. At first, he worried about following up his role in “Reversal of Fortune” with a cartoon musical about lions.

One of the issues with casting famous actors over professional voiceover artists is that they have busy schedules and group recordings aren’t necessarily easy. Matthew Broderick, who voiced the adult Simba, said he only recorded with one other cast member all of one time over the three years he worked on the movie. In fact, he didn’t even know Moira Kelly was playing the role of adult Nala until he saw her at the movie’s premiere.

Howard Ashman and Alan Menken were the go-to team for Disney music for a bit, but Ashman passed away during production of “Aladdin.” Rice stepped in to help Menken finish the songs for that movie. Menken was not available to work on “The Lion King,” so Rice was given the chance to choose his creative partner. Initially, Rice wanted to work with ABBA, but they too were unavailable. Then, Rice went to John, who did indeed sign on.

As early as 1991 members of the production were going to Kenya to study landscape and wildlife. During the animation process, real-life animals were used extensively as reference points. Of course, with the animals of the African savannah, that’s a bit trickier than, say, “Bambi.” The animators went to the zoo in Miami to study animal movements, and also had famed wildlife handler Jim Fowler come by the studio with lions as well.

To date, after some re-releases, “The Lion King” has made $425 million domestically and $979 million worldwide. In its initial run in 1994, though, it was already plenty successful. “The Lion King” made 763.5 million worldwide. That made it the highest-grossing movie of 1994, the highest-grossing animated movie in history, and the second-highest-grossing movie full stop, behind only “Jurassic Park.”

“The Lion King” came out before Best Animated Feature was an Oscar category, but it was all but a given the movie would win the Best Original Song Oscar. That was true even before nominations came out, but then three songs from “The Lion King” were nominated. The winner would be “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” On top of that, the score from Hans Zimmer won an Oscar as well.

In the 1960s famed Japanese animator Osamu Tezuka had an anime TV show that was called “Jungle Emperor,” but had been imported to the United States as “Kimba the White Lion.” Quickly, a lot of Japanese animation fans noticed similarities between “The Lion King” and “Kimba the White Lion.” There were protests in Japan and a petition demanding Disney give Tezuka credit was signed by over 400 Japanese cartoonists and animators. By this point, Tezuka was no longer alive, but Tezuka Productions was. However, the then-president of Tezuka Productions said the company “came to the conclusion that you cannot avoid having these similarities as long as you use animals as characters and try to draw images out of them.” Another member of Tezuka Productions dismissed rumors Disney had paid them hush money, and Tezuka’s surviving family also did not sue Disney over “The Lion King.”

When Disney decided to make a “Lion King” TV show, they centered it on the comedic meerkat and warthog. “Timon & Pumbaa” ran for 85 episodes between 1995 and 1999. On top of that, Disney also released the direct-to-video “The Lion King 1 ½” which is basically “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” but with Timon and Pumbaa. That is to say, it tells you what the duo were up to during the action of “The Lion King” they aren’t in.

The first direct-to-video “Lion King” sequel was “Simba’s Pride,” which was released in 1998. That movie is of the star-crossed lovers variety, with Simba and Nala’s daughter Kiara falling for Kovu, a lion raised by a den of Scar’s exiled followers. Then, in 2014, “The Lion Guard” debuted on Disney Channel. This show focused on Simba and Nala’s other cub, Kion. Man, all these “K” names. Disney really wasn’t sweating the “Kimba the White Lion” comparisons.

It must be noted that Jon Favreau’s 2019 film “The Lion King” is a CGI-animated movie that features animated animals designed to look photorealistic. Because it is more realistic looking than 1994’s “The Lion King” it has sometimes been called the “live-action” remake, but it decidedly is not. What the movie was, though, is amazingly successful. This “The Lion King” brought in $1.657 billion worldwide. It was the highest-grossing animated film in history until 2014’s “Inside Out 2.”

In 2024, “Mufasa: The Lion King” did the CGI animation thing again. This time around, as you likely surmised, we hear the story of Mufasa growing up alongside his brother Taka, best known as Scar. Somehow, Disney backed up the money truck enough to get Barry Jenkins, director of Best Picture winner “Moonlight,” to helm this movie. While the movie received lukewarm reviews, “Mufasa” proved another massive hit, which is par for the course with these films since the very beginning over 30 years ago.