Trivia / The Lion King (2019)

• Acting for Two: Chance the Rapper voices two minor characters in the jungle oasis, the bush baby and the antelope who says "uh oh" when Simba says he wants to eat antelope.
• All-Star Cast: Following in the footsteps of its source material, the cast is being headlined by some pretty big names, including Donald Glover as Simba, James Earl Jones as Mufasa, Beyoncé as Nala, Seth Rogen as Pumbaa, John Oliver as Zazu, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar, and Keegan-Michael Key as Kamari (Banzai).
• Approval of God:
  • Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff who directed the '94 original film, as well as Don Hahn who produced it, have expressed high hopes for the film.
  • Matthew Broderick stated that Donald Glover was the perfect choice for his original role of Simba.
  • Moira Kelly gave Beyonce two thumbs up for getting her role of Nala.
  • Nathan Lane, who voiced Timon in the original films, congratulated Billy Eichner after the latter was confirmed to voice the meerkat. Likewise, Ernie Sabella, who voices Pumbaa in works related to and including the original film, has also said that Seth Rogen is the perfect actor to take up the mantle.
  • Jeremy Irons looked forward to the film, albeit a tiny bit miffed that he wasn't asked to reprise the role of Scar.
  • Niketa Calame, who voiced Young Nala in the original film, said in the podcast Words of Wisdom that she enjoyed the remake a year after it came out. Producer Don Hahn also said he enjoyed the remake a year after it came out and said he was fine with them remaking it.
• Billing Displacement: Radio spots claim it's starring Beyoncé - the Beyhive may agree..
• Blooper:
  • A few of Simba's lines have strange audio effects that appear to be from the microphone not being properly adjusted. Examples include Simba saying "All of this will belong to me", there's a weird echo effect that can't be found in any of the other lines in the movie. Not only that but when Simba says "belong", it sounds like the audio is glitching. This goes away after he grows up and switches actors.
  • The line "Free to do it all my way" in "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" is auto tuned into the wrong key, most noticeably on the word "way".
  • When Rafiki finds out Simba is alive and stands up, the animation on Rafiki looks flat out unfinished, especially compared to how he and the other characters look in the rest of the movie.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Amy Sedaris was originally announced as playing an elephant shrew in the film. In the final film, Sedaris instead voices a guinea fowl, while Josh McCrary voices the elephant shrew character.
• Celebrity Voice Actor:
  • Beyoncé, who is better known as a singer than an actress, voices Nala.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Simba is voiced by the theater actor Carlos Rivera, who already played him in the Mexican version of the theater play.
  • In the Japanese dub, Simba is voiced by the movie actor Kento Kaku, who played male Ranma Saotome in the live-action adaptation of Ranma ½, Nala is voiced by theater actress Youko Kadoyama, while her younger self is voiced by child actress Seiran Kobayashi.^note Better know later on for voicing Eri in My Hero Academia and Lop in Star Wars: Visions. Scar is voiced by singer, actor and poet Yosuke Eguchi, who played Hajime Saito in the live-action adaptation of Rurouni Kenshin and Timon is voiced by the comedian Asei from the comedy duo MIKI.
  • In the Hindi dub, Mufasa is voiced by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, while his son Aryan Khan voices Simba, although, he is not a professional actor yet.
  • In the Brazilian dub, actor Ícaro Silva was Simba and singer Iza voiced Nala.
  • In the Swedish dub, singers John Lundvik, who represented Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest two months prior, and Molly Petterson Hammar voices adult Simba and Nala respetively.
• Creator Backlash:
  • After the film's release, Elton John was candid in his thoughts that the film was a massive disappointment, particularly the music. Tim Rice was also disappointed with the music of the film and shared John’s sentiment that the pair of them were barely considered during production. Rice also expressed disappointment in the new version of "Be Prepared", saying it didn’t have the impact of the original due to being severely shortened.
  • If a(n albeit mostly jokey) comment John Oliver made on an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is any indication, Oliver himself isn't fond of the movie either
    Biden is a radical, environmentalist, police defunding socialist in the same way that I am history's greatest Zazu. You can say I am all you want to, and honestly I wish I were, but the fact is it's not even close to being true."
• Disowned Adaptation:
  • Tony Bancroft, who animated Pumbaa in the original film, described the remake as "the 'meh' heard around the world."
  • David Stephan, another animator who worked on the original film, didn't care much for it either and implied that most of the original crew wouldn't have liked it either.
    "If you polled the crew of the original 'Lion King', most of them would say, 'Why? Did you really have to do that?' It kind of hurts."
• Fake Nationality: Given that the film is an American production, none of the actors are Kenyan, despite the story taking place there (evidenced by Mount Kilimanjaro appearing in the opening). Of the cast, only John Kani and Florence Kasumba are continent-born Africans, respectively hailing from South Africa and Uganda (although the latter was raised in Germany). Granted, there are African-Americans (most of the cast's black actors, including Glover, Jones, Beyoncé, and Key) and an African-Brit (Ejiofor, whose parents are from Nigeria). Notably, all lion characters are played by black actors, which may explain why Jeremy Irons didn't get to reprise his role as Scar.
• God Never Said That: In early 2018, Elton John claimed that four songs from the original film would be included, excluding “Be Prepared”. The Internet took this - as well as the lack of any additional comment on the subject - as confirmation that “Be Prepared” would not be included in the film. However, in April 2019, Favreau confirmed that all five songs from the original^note plus "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", which is not an original song composed for the movie but a snippet from a pre-existing song would be used in the film, and never made any indication that “Be Prepared” would be excluded at any point in production. This has not stopped persistent fan rumors and edits to IMDB insisting that the song was originally cut but put back in last-second to satisfy fans (despite the illogical notion that a full animated sequence would’ve been added back in so late into production after a rather small amount of backlash from fans).^note The true story is that originally it was going to be a spoken monologue before Tim Rice provided new lyrics to build on the monologue, saving its status as a song.
• Kids' Meal Toy: McDonald's sold ten toys that broke down into three detachable sets in their Happy Meals. The characters featured were Mufasa, Rafiki, Cub Simba, Sarabi, Cub Nala, Zazu, Timon, Pumbaa, Adult Simba, and Adult Nala.
• Loophole Abuse: Attempted by the creators of the film in their marketing and Oscars campaign. They frequently claimed that the film was "live-action" because of how photorealistic the animation was, to the point where they campaigned for almost every Oscar category except Best Animated Feature. This backfired, since a film that is animated is, by definition, not live-action, not matter how realistic. The Academy responded by dismissing ''every'' entry of the campaign except Best Visual Effects, which the film didn't even win.
• Milestone Celebration:
  • The film was released in 2019, the year that marked the 25th anniversary of the original. Tickets for the film first went on sale on June 24, 2019, the exact day of the original’s 25th anniversary.
  • The soundtrack includes a new version of Solomon Linda's "Mbube" on the song's 80th anniversary of its original album release in 1939. "Mbube" of course is the song that eventually became "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" to Western audiences. Favreau confirmed in the home release director’s commentary that this was indeed the intention.
• Missing Trailer Scene:
  • Subverted with several shots of “Circle of Life”. The original teaser trailer showed “Circle of Life” taking place in broad daylight, and a different establishing shot of Pride Rock and Rafiki climbing up the peak, neither of which appeared in the final film. However, the home release included snippets of the D23 2017 reel with these shots intact, revealing that these shots were simply placeholders until production got further along. The final film features a different pan into Pride Rock, a different shot of Rafiki climbing up Pride Rock, and takes place earlier in the morning than the D23 reel and the teaser trailer.
  • The D23 reel also featured a shot of three Indian rhinos reacting to the sunrise, in lieu of the final film’s shot of a single African rhino. It also had a different version of the sequence where the elephants approach the camera with the guinea fowl in apparent danger from being stepped on; instead, some storks fly away from the elephant’s path.
  • The teaser trailer featured a shot of the animals watching Rafiki sit atop Pride Rock to display Simba, like the original film’s shot of the antelope watching Rafiki ascend the peak, but this was not used in the final film.
  • A few weeks out from the film’s release, a Scar-centric TV spot featured a line from Scar that didn’t appear in the final film, but did appear in the novelization - “Mufasa has something he didn’t have before: a weakness”.
  • Throughout the film’s marketing campaign, Rafiki’s famous lines “it is time”, and “the King has returned”, were played over the various commercials and ads, most prominently the “Long Live the King” TV spot. However, these lines ultimately never appear in the film itself.
• Money, Dear Boy: Or rather "A Job, Dear Boy" in the case of Alfre Woodard. When asked what she thought about Elton John's complaints of the remake, she basically said that she does not care because she doesn't read reviews, she just does her job and moves on to the next film, implying she didn't really see this as any more than another paycheck. Considering she played a relatively minor character, it's hard to blame her.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor:
  • Florence Kasumba as Shenzi in English and German.
  • Damon Berry as Rafiki in French (European and Canadian) and Dutch.
• Playing Against Type: In the Japanese dub, and while not the first time she has played villanous roles, Miyuki Sawashiro (Shenzi) is normally typecasted into voicing heroic roles, The Cutie, or in the worst case, tragedy-striken villains. Shenzi is neither heroic, nor cute.
• Posthumous Credit: Film editor Mark Livolsi died during production in September 2018, so he is given a credit in this film.
• Promoted Fanboy: Donald Glover grew up watching the original film, and mentioned that while recording the music for the remake, he didn’t need anybody to teach him how to sing the songs he’d been singing since he was a child. Chance the Rapper was also a lifelong fan and though he didn't win the role of Simba, he still was brought in to help on the soundtrack.
• Reality Subtext: Mufasa's line "One day, the sun will set on my time here" from the trailer carries a bit more impact when you consider it's spoken by James Earl Jones, who despite his Role Reprise from the original animated film, was 88 years old by the time the remake was released. His added line "I never left you, and I never will" was also noted to seemingly be tailor-made to his declining health.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • The Hindi dub of the film features the voices of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan as Mufasa and his son Aryan Khan as (adult) Simba.
  • In the European Spanish dub, Esther Solans voices Sarabi. Her father, Ricardo Solans, was the voice of Scar in the original animated film.
• Refitted for Sequel:
  • The subplot of Scar trying to make Sarabi his queen is an adaptation of a cut subplot from the original in which Scar tried to make Nala his queen, which was later adapted into the Broadway show’s “The Madness of King Scar”. Favreau agreed that it was too creepy for Scar to try courting Nala, and felt his attraction to Sarabi made more sense since they were the same age and that it gave another context to his jealousy of Mufasa.
  • During the end of the film when Simba reunites with his friends and family after the battle, Zazu greets him by addressing him as “your majesty”. The original film also had Zazu greeting Simba this way until very late in production, when the filmmakers decided the scene worked better with no dialogue at all. It was cut so late that Zazu’s mouth is still visibly mouthing “your majesty” in the final cut, and the line still survived into the Broadway version.
• Role Reprise:
  • James Earl Jones reprises his role as Mufasa, and is notably the only surviving original cast member to make a return.
  • Shahadi Wright Joseph (young Nala) and Florence Kasumba (Shenzi) are unique for being the only two cast members who have previously portrayed their characters in the theatrical adaptation.
    • In a slightly lesser example, the main vocalist for this film's version of "Circle of Life" is Lindiwe Mkhize, who performed the song in the London stage version in her longtime role as Rafiki from 2005 to 2018.
  • In the European Spanish dub, Alberto Mieza (Timon), Óscar Mas (Timon's singing voice), Miguel Ángel Jenner (Pumbaa), Juan Fernández (Rafiki) and Eduard Doncos (Zazu) reprise their roles again from the animated productions.
  • In the Finnish dub, Antti Pääkkönen reprises his role as Timon from the sequels, Timon & Pumbaa and The Lion Guard.
  • In both French dubs (European and Canadian), Jean Reno reprises his role as Mufasa.
  • In the Hungarian dub, Gábor Vass reprises his role of Mufasa from the sequels and The Lion Guard.
  • In the Japanese dub, Shinya Ohwada, who voiced Mufasa in the animated adaptations, reprises his role again. Likewise, Masao Komaya, who voiced Rafiki in the dub of The Lion Guard as the replacement of the late Ryuji Saikachi, also reprises the role here.
  • In the Polish dub, Wiktor Zborowski, the original voice for Mufasa, reprises his role again.
  • While not technically a reprise from the animated works, in the Latin American Spanish dub Simba is voiced by Carlos Rivera, who played him in the Mexican version of the theater play.
  • Even though he didn't get to voice him in the Latin Spanish dub's final mix, Genaro Vasquez briefly reprised the role of Rafiki in a TV spot.
  • The Swedish dub has Svante Thuresson and Johan Schinkler reprising their roles as Rafiki and Mufasa, respectively.
  • Not from the original movie, but Anders Bye who provided the Norwegian voice of Timon in The Lion Guard is returning as the same character in this film.
  • In the German dub, Magdalena Turba, who voiced young Nala in the original film, voices adult Nala.
  • In the Icelandic dub, the actor who voices adult Simba in this film, Þorvaldur D. Kristjánsson, voiced young Simba in the original.
  • In the Danish dub, Henrik Kofoed and Lars Thiesgaard are back as Timon and Pumba, roles they have played in all movies and tv-shows since the original.
• Short Run in Peru: Was released one week early in China.
• So My Kids Can Watch: Donald Glover said he was excited for his son to watch the movie...only for his son to recognize Beyoncé was in the movie yet had no idea his own father was even in it.
• Teasing Creator: Despite the film being almost entirely a digital creation, Favreau has mentioned that there is literally one live-action shot in the movie that was explicitly added to see if audiences could tell the difference between a real environment and the computer-generated world. It's the very first shot in the film; the sunrise that begins "Circle of Life".
• Throw It In!: Favreau allowed the cast to improvise a good deal, and thus put off the animation of the characters' mouths and lip-synching as far as possible since the actors would continuously come up with newer, better material, particularly Eichner and Rogen as Timon and Pumbaa.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Benedict Cumberbatch was considered for Scar.
  • When Elton John's participation in the film's soundtrack was announced, it was said that he, Rice, and Beyoncé would collaborate on a new song to serve as the end credits theme. The collaboration never panned out, and John would be the only performer on the credits theme, "Never Too Late". Tim Rice would later reveal that "Never Too Late" was written with the intention to be used for the sequence in which Simba returns to the Pride Lands after seeing Mufasa’s spirit, though it ended up as the credits theme.
  • "Spirit" was originally intended to be the main end credits theme of the film, but Hans Zimmer, impressed by the song's storytelling, successfully lobbied for it to be inserted into the actual film itself.
  • Concept art by Faraz Shanyar shows a take on Shenzi, Banzai and Ed more closely resembling their animated versions.
  • Several pieces of concept art depict the Elephant Graveyard similar to how it appeared in the animated film, as well as portions of "Be Prepared" involving a fiery backdrop.◊ In addition, Scar's design◊ was initially closer to the original, featuring a less emaciated frame, fuller mane and his trademark goatee.
  • The Blu-Ray director's commentary revealed a few notes:
    • "Be Prepared" was a song whose fate was debated heavily; Favreau felt the sequence's nature as a bombastic Villain Song would be too out of place and clash with the remake's photorealism. Though it was briefly suggested to cut the song, the production crew liked the song too much to truly consider it. A version was put forth in which the song was changed to a spoken monologue by Scar, but Favreau was unsatisfied and asked Hans Zimmer if there could be a musical version that would fit with the film. Ultimately, Tim Rice provided updated lyrics to reflect Scar's different relationship with the hyenas, Zimmer built music around it, and what we get in the final film is a combination of the original monologue and the new music from Rice and Zimmer.
    • The final fight between Simba and Scar was originally rendered in slow-motion like the original, but it never looked right, so it was played at a slightly slower speed as a compromise.
  • Tim Rice wrote another original song called “Light of the World” which went unused.
• Word of God: Favreau revealed on the Blu-Ray commentary that the mouse who Book Ends the film is the exact same mouse, as he felt it'd be funny to have the mouse ultimately outlive Scar after nearly being eaten by him.
• You Sound Familiar:
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Mufasa is played by Sebastián Llapur, who voiced Scar in all of his appearances after his previous actor Carlos Petrel's death. Also, Rafiki is voiced by Arturo Mercado, who voiced the main protagonist Simba in all of his appearances.
  • In the Norwegian dub, Scar is voiced by Håvard Bakke, who voiced adult Simba in all the movies and TV series.

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