If you haven’t heard the big news, Disney is releasing a special edition of The Lion King next month — and we are so excited!
The movie, which is probably on your top five list of favorite Disney movies ever (don’t deny it), actually has so many secrets behind it.
Did you know that at the same time The Lion King was being made, so was Pocahontas?
A “B-Team” of Disney animators worked on the film, since the “A-Team” had been working on Pocahontas, the film that the company thought would be more successful.
“The head of the studio got up and basically said, ‘Pocahontas’ is a home run. It’s ‘West Side Story’ meets ‘Romeo and Juliet’ meets ‘Dances with Wolves’ and ‘Lion King,’ on the other hand, is clearly an experiment,’” director Rob Minkoff remembered during a recent interview.
“Yeah, our pitch was Moses meets Joseph and ‘Hamlet’ in Africa’ with music by Elton John,” producer Don Hahn joked about it.
There was a funny deal struck too — if Lion King made $50 million at the box office, the studio head was going to get down on his hands and knees.
The Lion King made nearly $1 billion at the box office, with Pocahontas following way behind at only $346 million worldwide.
The special edition of the movie will hit shelves on August 15th.
