Places in Kenya that inspired the making of the Lion King Film

There are movies that were wholly or partly filmed in Kenya that have put the country on the global map. Among them The Constant Gardener and Nowhere in Africa. Then there are those that have served as a marketing tool for the Kenyan tourism sector. 2003’s Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life is one such movie which sort to showcase Kenya in all its scenic magnificence and explore its deep culture. 

There are yet others that have aided the conservation efforts of Kenya where proceeds go directly towards conservation. The live-action redo of the 1994 film Lion King has managed to do all three.

But before the script was final, before the cast was fully assembled and before the digital sets could be designed, filmmakers committed to doing their homework to ensure the authenticity and believability of the creatures and habitats that would ultimately be created for the film.

“What was nice about the 1994 film was that they really did a lot of research then. And although it’s 2D and it is stylized, you can still see and understand what they were drawing from,” says Jon Favreau, the director, The Lion King. 

“We tried to go back to the source material, and we looked at where they scouted.” 

This led them to the African Savanna, where they did a tremendous amount of research with Favreau coming to Kenya on safari six months before meeting with Disney about The Lion King.

The research took several forms, beginning with intensive studies of imagery and film - filmmakers watched documentaries that captured the migration of animals in Africa, among other phenomena. The goal of the extensive research trip to Kenya, of course, was to capture the majesty and beauty - as well as the rugged and sometimes ruthless reality of the landscape.

Critical to the outcome of the film was capturing the true behaviour and mannerisms of the stars of their film - the lions, hyenas and warthogs because these characters have an impact on people of a certain generation around the globe.

So to avoid heading down a slippery slope toward an unbelievable, unrelatable and unemotional film, they kept everything as natural as possible – the right species, the right colours of rocks, the light of a sunrise or sunset, the night sky, the right types of plants, varying terrains, different climates.

Here are the places from Maasai Mara to Amboseli National Park to Samburu that inspired filmmakers to build breathtaking scenes for Lion King from real-life locations that pay homage to the original film.

Pride lands

Maasai Mara which is part of Serengeti National Park inspired the Pride Lands. Filmmakers photographed iconic grasslands and acacia trees, as well as the ever-changing skies. Animals include lions, leopards, cheetah, wildebeest, Cape buffalo, zebra and antelope reside here.

Pride Rock

Pride Rock is an iconic site ingrained in audiences’ memories and hearts since 1994. In the original film, Pride Rock stands as a tower of rock in the middle of a huge verdant green landscape, entirely unmotivated by hills or other rocks. Building that in the animated world, our concern going in was, where did those rocks come from?

The question served as a starting point for production designer James Chinlund and his team. 

“How much other terrain, rock, and landscape could we bring in to make Pride Rock feel familiar,” he says, 

“Like the Pride Rock we know and love, but at the same time feel motivated by geology and the terrain around it, so that you accept it visually? If you see a rock formation in the middle of an empty landscape, your eye immediately trips an alarm, saying something doesn’t feel quite right. A lot of what we were doing on such spaces generally involved trying to capture the romantic quality from the original film, while making it feel grounded in truth.”

“So, finding a way to anchor Pride Rock into the terrain that felt familiar and real was a challenge. That’s why our Pride Lands and Pride Rock are direct amalgams of things we saw in Kenya,” continues Chinlund. 

There are, in fact, rocks on the landscape that forms directly from actual scans of rocks we found in Chyulu Hills. The textures and colours and qualities of the rock that is Pride Rock were based directly on rock formations in Kenya. 

Borana, located in north-central Kenya, was referenced for the area around Pride Rock.

Watering Hole

Challenge Beach in Kenya served as reference for the watering hole within the Pride Lands.

Simba’s escape

Mount Kenya, with its oversized flora, offered filmmakers the cloud-forest look they needed for Simba as he grows up alongside Timon and Pumbaa. Lakes here served as the perfect reference for Simba to see reflections of Mufasa.

The Aberdares’ waterfalls, including Karuru Waterfall – the tallest in Kenya – provided reference for Nala’s return to Simba’s life. It would be interesting to note that it is also here that Safaricom shot its ‘Niko Na Safaricom’ advert that features a choir.

The Sossusvlei, in Namibia’s Namib Desert, and its spectacular sand dunes served as a reference for the area that Simba finds himself in after leaving the Pride Lands while Kenya’s Turkana provided additional inspiration.

Other places that inspired other scenes include the tufas in Mono Lake, California, which provided an extraordinary reference for the Elephant Graveyard in the story.

That, plus the Sesriem Canyon in Namibia provided the perfect inspiration for the film’s dramatic scene where Simba practices his roar. The narrow canyon is more than a half-mile long and up to 100 feet deep.

Besides providing inspiration, three-time Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Rob Legato said the experience transcended the needs for the film. 

“There’s something spiritual about being in Africa. There’s something about the collective of nature, how it balances, how one creature behaves and how the other animal either eats that thing or creates something that allows the ecology of the place to run. We realized there’s a grand design somewhere. You cannot walk away from a trip like this without some spiritual feeling about the cradle of all life.”