While Las Vegas is the place for big shows and dreams to be made, some ideas should never make it to the stage. That’s exactly what the executives at Disney were thinking when they canned the original idea of Julie Taymor, the director of Broadway’s The Lion King. Taymor shares her original idea while speaking at the Nantucket Project:
“In my original idea… [Simba] doesn’t go back at all. That never happened,” she said of Simba returning from his adventures in the jungle to become king. Instead, “He goes to the desert. And in the desert, he comes out of the jungle… And he sees Vegas.”
She wanted to introduce a new villain named Papa Croc who struck a deal with Scar, the villainous lion, to buy all the water in the land. Eliminating the water creates a desert oasis: Las Vegas (complete with plays on animals and humans, like Papa Croc’s Pussycat Lounge).
“And here comes Simba the wild beast from the jungle, and he falls for Papa Croc because he doesn’t have a father,” Taymor said. Simba’s father, Mufasa, dies both in the movie and at the end of the first act of her musical.
But Papa Croc then puts Simba in the Coliseum and forces him to fight against animals from other lands in a brutal animal gladiator show.
Thankfully, this scenario was not approved. Instead, Simba misses the Vegas stage and saves Pride Rock. Taymor agrees staying with the movie’s ending was the right call. However, she did hint Vegas might still happen. But for now, Taymor is being inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame for her direction of The Lion King on Broadway, which is still the highest grossing entertainment production.
