AOLMoviefone is celebrating the upcoming Blu-ray release of “The Lion King” as well as the film’s 17-year history with an article on 17 facts you may not know about the making of the beloved classic.
Some things “Lion King” aficionados might already know, like the fact that the film wasn’t originally going to be a musical and was going to be more National Geographic in tone until lyricist Tim Rice suggested some songs and the addition of Elton John and that Mufasa and Sarabi’s voice actors, James Earl Jones and Madge Sinclair, acted together as royal parents in the Eddie Murphy classic comedy “Coming to America,” in which they played Murphy’s character Akeem’s parents. Fans might also probably know that similar to the movie’s recent two-week theatrical box-office performance the film was the highest grossing film worldwide in 1994, grossing a global amount of $772.6 million as well as being the highest-grossing 2D cartoon of all time and fourth-biggest animated film of all time.
But you might not know that the song “Hakuna Matata” was, one point, the bane of Elton John’s existence and that John requested (or, rather, insisted) that “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” be more serious in tone than another joke song for Timon and Pumbaa.
You can read about all 17 facts here at AOL Moviefone.
