The Lion King - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[alyssa]

The shot with Mufasa blocking the sun when he first enters Scar's lair is a nod to Henry VIII in the 1966 film A Man For All Seasons.

[melinda]

The second film directed by Jon Favreau where the main villain is played by a Black British actor, after The Jungle Book (2016), a fellow remake of a Disney animated feature film.

[janice]

Once footage was shot and captured onto computers, the setup was turned over to visual effects company MPC to create the photorealistic imagery. Throughout the process of reviewing footage and maintaining an up to date edit, Legato and his team utilized DaVinci Resolve Studio and DaVinci Resolve Advanced Panels in two suites, with Legato applying color to shots as guides to the final colorists. The DaVinci Resolve project was often updated many times a day with new footage from MPC. Legato only screened for Favreau in context of the cut, rather than showing individual shots, so it was important to be able to balance shots to provide a smooth screening experience. The facility shared a DaVinci Resolve database to allow various team members around the facility to view the same timeline without tying up a screening room.

[ethel]

The expanded '"The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was one of the first musical numbers that Pharrell Williams worked on for the film.

[aaron]

Seth Rogen raves of Knowles-Carter, "I was once shoved aside by her security guards backstage at the Grammys."

[albert]

The hyenas Shenzi, Kamari, and Azizi are named after the Swahili words for "savage," "mighty," and "moonlight," respectively. Kamari and Azizi were originally named Banzai and Ed in the 1994 animated film, but were given African names for this film.

[addison]

Shenzi is larger than the other hyenas and is a lot more menacing. That's because female hyenas are larger and more aggressive than their male counterparts in real life. Also, notice in the film she works with Scar, and not for him. This Shenzi is the leader of the hyenas, and doesn't seem like the type to take orders from anyone.

[linda]

Timon, in the original film, always stood, walked, and ran on his hind legs; Timon will be more realistic in this version, as he, like an actual meerkat, will be walking on all fours.

[bessie]

In the original movie, the characters to have African names are Simba, Nala, Mufasa, Sarabi, Zazu, Rafiki, Pumbaa and Shenzi. The only ones to have non-African names are Scar, Timon, Banzai and Ed. Scar and Timon are the only characters to have their names stay the same in the remake (Scar is assumed to be a nickname due to the scar he has), while Banzai and Ed are the only ones to be renamed.

[christina]

Seth Rogen (Pumbaa) and Billy Eichner (Timon) had previously worked together on Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016), and Seth had also done an episode of Eichner's comedy game show, Billy on the Street.

[maureen]

Disney's domination at the global box office and its plans to take on Netflix will be centre stage when it reports its latest results this week, with films from Avengers: Endgame to The Lion King driving its best year ever on the big screen. The share price of the world's biggest entertainment company has surged by more than a quarter over the past year, making for a $260bn (214bn) stock market valuation as it continues to dominate cinemas while plotting its streaming future with the launch of its rival to Netflix later this year. Disney, which will report its latest quarterly results on Tuesday, broke its annual worldwide box office record, taking $7.67bn after only seven months. Avengers: Endgame has surpassed Avatar as the highest-grossing film of all time ($2.8bn). And Disney has already equalled its record of four $1bn-plus blockbusters in a year (Captain Marvel, Aladdin, The Lion King) with Frozen 2 and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker still to come. Disney's strength after the $71bn deal to buy X-Men to Deadpool-maker Fox it controls 40% of the US movie market comes from its carefully curated depth of content. The company is reaping the benefits of a six-year buying spree of top-quality-content businesses, snapping up the Toy Story maker Pixar ($7.4bn), Marvel Studios ($4bn), and Star Wars maker Lucasfilm ($4bn) between 2006 and 2012. However, Disney's upcoming results are likely to show a drop in profits as it spends heavily on breaking into the global streaming market, dominated by Netflix and Amazon, with its rival Disney+ service scheduled to launch in the US on 12 November. Disney has priced it at $6.99, close to half of Netflix US's most popular tier, and is willing to swallow hundreds of millions in lost licensing revenue until it turns its first expected profit in 2024. Last month $18bn was wiped off the value of Netflix after it lost subscribers in its biggest market, the US, for the first time in eight years. Competition is set to further intensify over the next year as streaming services from NBC Universal, AT&T's HBO Max and Apple are launched.

[lynn]

Nathan Lane (Timon in the original 1994 animated film) and John Oliver (Zazu in the remake) have also appeared in an episode of The Daily Show (1996).

[ava]

Even though they play Simba and Scar respectively (uncle and nephew), Donald Glover is only six years younger than Chiwetel Ejiofor. Similarly, in the original 1994 animated film, the voice of Simba (Matthew Broderick) was only 13 years younger than the voice of Scar (Jeremy Irons).

[duane]

It took 130 animators from 30 different countries to create the character designs for the movie.