A colleague of mine has been sharing a lot of Disney development work on LinkedIn and today he posted this work-in-progress of the opening from the original THE LION KING. It brings back a lot of memories, two of the most prominent are, how late in the process this opening came together, and how it stands the test of time of one of the most powerful openings of film ever. This film went through incredible development pains. I saw directors and producers fired after more than two years of work. Most in the studio didn’t want to be on it. Of the two films in production at the time, this was the “B” movie and POCAHONTAS was the “A” movie. Then the new directors and the story team went to Africa (again). They came back with the phrase HAKUNA MATATA and the idea of the circle of life theme. Tim Rice wrote the lyrics and Elton John the music with South African composer Lebo M singing the primary vocal.
The script was a work in progress (at the time pages were often redone to reflect input from the story team). This opening comes in at a tight 4 pages, including lyrics.
Even with all of that reworking and development, you can see in the two clips below how it is improved with each iteration; and really that is how Disney made these films with such perfection. Through iteration, testing, rinse and repeat.
Even so, this opening never fails to arrest the attention and delight the senses all while establishing world, theme and characters.
Does anyone have another animation opening that sticks the landing like this one?
The first link is the work in progress, the second is the final cut.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jazno_note-movie-link-below-this-was-our-...
https://youtu.be/3tVyCVESaDA?feature=shared