Word: simba
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...crunch time for the movie business. Print labs, publicity machines, moguls' teeth--all are grinding overtime to get a bunch of pricey or prestige-laden films into theaters by Christmastime. You'd think Hollywood was Toys "R" Us, doing a Simba's share of business at year-end, or that releasing a serious film at holiday time helped win Oscars. No and no. The summer is still box-office prime time; and in the past five years, only six of the 25 Oscar nominees for Best Picture were released in December. Yet that is when studios launch dozens of ambitious...
...Cats T shirt or a Les Miz CD on their way out. But the gaudily restored New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street, where Disney's stage version of The Lion King opened last week, boasts nothing less than an entire store filled with sweatshirts, stuffed animals and other Simba memorabilia. Has there ever been a Broadway show more confident that it will run forever? It has to; how else are the kids going to pass the time before loading up on merchandise...
...animation a market that will always expand? Or was the Simba spectacular the apogee of a trend? Or a glorious fluke? Disney's last three fully animated films to hit theaters--Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules, all released after Katzenberg's rancorous departure from Disney and his start-up of DreamWorks--have earned together just a bit more than The Lion King...
...Simba, I don't think we're in Disneyland anymore. Disney's first Broadway musical, Beauty and the Beast--based on the film and directed by a theme-park veteran, Rob Roth--was a traditional stage confection that came as close as possible to being a literal, three-dimensional re-creation of the movie. Yet to direct the stage version of The Lion King, the most successful movie in the company's history, Disney has hired someone who made her name in the avant-garde theater. It was a daring choice, for live theater has become an increasingly important part...
...technical problems haven't all been solved. In one performance, Simba's father Mufasa's mask fell off just before his big death scene. In another, characters who were supposed to fly remained stubbornly earthbound because of a cable foul-up. Taymor deals with such matters each day in a series of notes to crew members. "It felt very dark as the grass came in," she told stage manager Jeff Lee one afternoon, referring to the women wearing grass headdresses to represent the African savanna. A burst of unexpected applause from the audience covered up a key musical passage. Timon...