The heartwarming tale and characters of The Lion King are making their grand entrance to the theaters again, but this time in a completely renewed format that has generations buzzing with excitement.
Retitled appropriately The Lion King 3D, the film will play in theaters nationwide for only two weeks starting Sept. 16, updated so that the three-dimensional effect will bring audiences, old and new, closer to the story.
The classic Disney motion picture, first released in theaters in 1994, instantly became a classic with award-winning music written by Elton John and Tim Rice, along with compositions by Hans Zimmer who has also composed pieces for other films like The Pirates of the Caribbean and Inception.
It became the highest grossing motion picture worldwide shortly after being released into theaters and ranked second in the U.S. box office, following closely after Forrest Gump, generating a total of $788,241,776, according to film-tracking website Box Office Mojo.
Both co-directors of The Lion King, Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, have been heavily involved in Disney’s Feature Animation Studios years before they were recruited to work on what would become a milestone in animation history.
“The first thing that came to my mind was, ‘How are they going to do that?’ I didn’t have a clue how a 2-dimensional movie could be translated into 3-D,” said Roger Allers, according to a press release. “It was certainly an eye-opening process for me.”
The journey for transitioning the movie from a motion picture to a three-dimensional film was a challenge that all the original crew members faced. “It took four months to complete the conversion,” said Robert Neuman, the stereographer of The Lion King 3D in a press release.
“Why do this with such a great, classic film? In creating this 3-D version, we’re creating a whole new art form, a whole new medium. You have all of the charm and the energy of the hand-drawn line that the original artists put down on paper, but there’s a tangibility that you usually only get out of something that has more dimensional framework.”
“A team of 60 artists worked on the project,” Neuman noted, referring to the staff that created the 3-D version.
Allers says, “You feel much closer to the action with the 3-D version. The 3-D really pushes the drama and you are drawn into the story.”
Even after more than 15 years since the creation of The Lion King, it still stands as one of the true gems of Disney’s animation movies, having set the bar high for the rest to follow. For many years after, Disney continuously gained earnings from The Lion King merchandise, memorabilia, toys, and music.
The story became such a phenomenon that there was a Broadway musical The Lion King created in 1997, and it has been the seventh longest-running show in history, according to the Internet Broadway Database.
Though filled with resonating music and quirky characters, the film also embodies values that teach children and adults alike about the strong relationships between parents and their children, to look within yourself for guidance, and that good always conquers evil.
“The main challenge creatively was to tell an anthropomorphic story about animals. I think the level of anthropomorphism in the film exceeds many of its predecessors, which is something we were very proud of,” Minkoff said in a press release, when asked about the challenges of creating The Lion King.”
“Our characters had a more human feel to them, especially characters like Timon and Rafiki. Despite being animals, they look and act very human indeed.”
