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There'd be a big Lion King change if it was made today

Photo credit: Disney
Photo credit: Disney

From Digital Spy

The Lion King might have had one major change if the classic Disney animation was made today.

Co-director Rob Minkoff has been talking to Collider ahead of the re-release of The Lion King on Blu-ray, and he recalled a conversation he had with Jon Favreau who is directing the live-action remake.

"One of the things [he] said, which I found really fascinating, he said to me, 'If we made this movie for the first time today, the studio never would have let us kill Mufasa the way we did'. Because it's not in the first reel," Minkoff explained.

Now, parent deaths are nothing new in Disney, happening in everything from Bambi to Finding Nemo, but it's the fact that Mufasa is killed off halfway through that has a bigger emotional impact.

"To actually kill as important a character as Mufasa is, in the middle of the movie, I mean literally in the third reel, is not typical," Minkoff noted. "It's just not what you do.

"So we had, not by design, but by the fact that it wasn't based on something, and it was kind of an original story, and nobody knew what the rules were. So we said, 'Well, I guess we'll try'."

Considering we're only just getting over the fact that Scar and Mufasa weren't brothers, the idea of us not even seeing Mufasa past the opening reel is too much to handle.

But before you get worried that the remake will be drastically different, we doubt that will be the case given how Disney has handled the remakes of The Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast.

The Lion King, which will star Donald Glover as Simba, is due in cinemas on July 19, 2019.


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