Ten Little Known Facts About The Lion King
With Disney preparing to release The Lion King 3D for the first time in theaters on September 16th and then to Disney Blu-ray Hi-Def and Blu-ray 3D October 4th, join us as we journey back in time to uncover a ten little known facts and secrets about the animated blockbuster.
#1 THE ORIGINAL TITLE OF THE MOVIE WASN’T ‘THE LION KING’
“When I first started work on The Lion King, the movie was called King Of The Jungle,” reveals the film’s producer Don Hahn. “King Of The Jungle was a metaphor for this allegorical story about human behavior. We were thinking about the idea of how it’s a jungle out there and Simba has to exist in this jungle. However, there was no jungle in our story; they’re out on a savannah. Another title we looked into was King Of The Beasts, which made more sense because a lion is the king of beasts – but then we threw that out because we wanted to focus on a simple story about a lion king. At that stage we thought, ‘Why not call it The Lion King?’ The story is about a kid who wants to be king and his uncle frames him for murder, so he grows up in the wilderness and then he has to come back to claim his throne. That’s the whole story, and it’s all about a lion king, so the name stuck.”