A closer look
Disney executives originally pitched The Lion King as an original animated feature about African wildlife, but storywriters quickly realized they were basically just adapting William Shakespeare's Hamlet with singing animals. A jealous uncle murdering the king, sending the young prince into exile, and the prince returning to avenge his father is the exact plot of the classic tragedy, just without the soliloquies and with significantly more catchy Elton John musical numbers. The studio eventually leaned into the comparison to make the movie seem more prestigious. It is genuinely brilliant marketing to take a four-hundred-year-old depressing play about Danish political murder, slap some bright colors and a dancing warthog on it, and sell a billion dollars in children's merchandise!
