Disney’s The Lion King is a prime example of a bonafide classic, and it’s hard to imagine the film being different in any way. The earlier drafts of The Lion King are almost unrecognizable.
Scar was even more heinous
Scar’s already pretty terrible in the final version of the movie, but in some of the earlier Lion King drafts, Scar is practically a monster.
He isn’t Mufasa’s brother (so there’s no relatable sibling rivalry); he’s a rogue, power-hungry lion who had been banned from another pride.
Scar wasn’t drawn as the slender, manipulative creep we love to hate. In the drafts, he’s twice as big as Mufasa, and he lets his muscle do the talking. In fact, there was no wild stampede scene in the planning stages of The Lion King. Scar murders Mufasa in front of everyone.
Yeah, draft Scar was terrible. Is it weird that I’m actually appreciating real Scar right now? A rewatch of The Lion King should fix that.
Simba & Nala were cousins
The Lion King family tree is a bit bizaare. The original draft (on page 3) made it pretty clear that Simba and Nala were cousins. Nala’s mother, Naanda, and Simba’s mother, Sarabi, are sisters. The disturbing detail wasn’t glossed over; it would hardly qualify as an Easter egg since the two young lions were scripted to refer to each other as “cousin.”
Wait, they’re siblings?
It gets weirder: The original draft implied that Simba and Nala weren’t just cousins — they were actually siblings.
The very first scene (page 3) starts with two characters admiring Simba and Nala horsing around. “Aren’t they darling?” one says. “Mufasa would be so proud,” the other responds. That pretty much implies that Mufasa fathered both Nala and Simba, which makes sense in regards to the animal kingdom. How many male lions did you see in The Lion King? Hmm.
It wasn’t called ‘The Lion King’
The Lion King went through a bunch of drafts. The first title for the film was King of the Beasts. J.T. Allen wrote the earliest version of The Lion King in January 1990. Another early version of The Lion King was written in May 1990 by Allen and Ron Bass.
Scar went out on his own terms
Simba and Nala being potential siblings was probably revised as soon as someone re-read the script, but Scar’s original demise almost made it to the finished film.
In the final version of The Lion King, Scar and Simba battle on Pride Rock while it’s encased in flames. The fight ends when Scar gets thrown off the side of the cliff and is torn apart by hyenas. In the original draft, it’s Simba who gets thrown into the fiery abyss. Simba doesn’t die; instead, the flames rise up as if targeting Scar. As Scar is being broiled alive, he lets out a chilling laugh that producers thought was probably too bone-chilling for kids. There’s no real sense of defeat for Scar, and I guess that wasn’t satisfying enough.
It wasn’t originally a musical
The Lion King was almost not a musical. I know, the horror of even imaging such a thing makes me shudder, too.
When The Lion King was King of the Beasts and then King of the Jungle in 1990 and 1992, there wasn’t a single musical score in the script. However, once the storyboards were finished on January 26, 1993, The Lion King was indeed a musical. Hooray!
There was no “Hakuna Matata”
The beloved number “Hakuna Matata” almost didn’t make it to the big screen.
“Warthog Rhapsody,” the song that almost replaced the fan favorite, was sung by Timon and Pumbaa with essentially the same message as “Hakuna Matata.” Timon and Pumbaa sing about their carefree lifestyle of eating bugs and simply taking it seriously. “Warthog Rhapsody,” also called “He’s Got It All Worked Out,” was released on the Legacy Collection CDs. It was rewritten as “That’s All I Need,” which makes an appearance in The Lion King 1 1/2. That song sure had legs!
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