Movies - The Lion King

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The Lion King is the 32nd animated feature in the Disney animated feature canon, and the highest-grossing traditionally animated feature film ever released in the United States. It was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, originally released to selected cities by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution on June 15, 1994, and put into general release on June 24, 1994. A digitally retouched and enhanced Special Edition version of the film was released in IMAX format on December 25, 2002.

The film is about a young lion cub named Simba who learns about his place on the throne of Pride Rock and his role in the circle of life. It is frequently alleged that The Lion King was based on Osamu Tezuka's 1960s animated series Kimba the White Lion, although the filmmakers deny this. The filmmakers do, however, acknowledge the prominent influences of both Shakespeare's play Hamlet and the 1942 Disney animated feature Bambi
.

Unlike previous Disney animated films, which featured only a select few famous voice actors alongside lesser-known performers, nearly all of the voice acting work for this film was done by well-known actors, including Matthew Broderick, James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Nathan Lane, Ernie Sabella, Robert Guillaume, Moira Kelly, Rowan Atkinson, Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin and Jim Cummings. The Lion King is a musical film, with songs written by composer Elton John and lyricist Tim Rice, and a film score by Hans Zimmer. Many of the John/Rice tunes became Disney standards or pop hits in their own right, and Zimmer's score also drew substantial praise.

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The Lion King, though a very humanistic story, remains the only Disney film to lack any trace of human existence. Robin Hood featured only anthropomorphized animals who lived like humans, while Bambi featured only unseen human characters; whether this makes The Lion King Walt Disney's first "non-human animals-only" film is open to interpretation, but it is one film that is free of "human elements". The film was also the first Disney animated feature to have a non-villain main character die on-screen.

Computer animation was used extensively in the creation of the movie, particularly during the "Circle of Life" and the technologically innovative stampede sequences.

During its production, The Lion King was considered a secondary project to Pocahontas
, which was in production at the same time. Many of the Disney Feature Animation staffers preferred to work on Pocahontas, thinking that film would be the more prestigious and successful of the two. However, as the film was being marketed, the studio noticed that the released teaser, which consisted of the entire opening sequence featuring the song, "Circle of Life", was getting a strongly enthusiastic reaction from audiences. Furthermore, when the film was in limited release in two major theatres, the film did very impressive business which suggested that this "secondary project" promised to be popular. Upon general release, the film more than confirmed that suspicion by becoming the most successful film of the year and the most successful animated feature film ever at the time (though with inflation factored in it would be fourth). The film made $328,541,776 in domestic gross income and $783,841,776 worldwide. With hindsight, the film can be seen as marking the peak of the popular success of the late-80s-to-mid-90s "renaissance" of Disney animation.

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Movies - The Lion King

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