After The Lion King, Jon Favreau Wanted to Film the Real Thing

To capture the high-stakes odyssey that is an African lion cub’s perilous path to adulthood, the crew behind the new four-part National Geographic series Lion spent more than four years (some 1,500 filming days) gathering footage on Kenya’s Masai Mara savannah. The project was a feat of patience and persistence—and an epic introduction to nature-documentary filmmaking for executive producer Jon Favreau.

“To my understanding, this has never been done before, where you follow a pride of lions for so long and actually watch the stories unfold,” says Favreau, whose directing credits include Marvel’s Iron Man and the photorealistic remakes of Disney’s The Jungle Book and The Lion King. The new series plays a bit like the latter: A young cub comes of age in his pride, facing down rivals and hyenas on a journey to become a king (or at least a courageous adult). Unlike a scripted series, Favreau says, “everything you’re seeing is unmanipulated,” although he acknowledges that crafting a narrative from so much footage felt almost like editing reality TV.

Favreau’s vision for Lion was shared by executive producer and veteran BBC wildlife filmmaker Mike Gunton, then set to music by Hans Zimmer, who composed the Oscar-winning score to the original animated Lion King. Favreau talked to National Geographic about using a Hollywood tool kit to tell a real-life story of unparalleled scope.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

National Geographic: Why a nature documentary, and why now?

Jon Favreau: When we first set out to do our version of The Lion King many years ago—and actually, even predating that, to Jungle Book—the animators and I, and the production designers, in an attempt to bring authenticity to the environments and the creatures, we did a lot of research. We kept finding ourselves drawn to what I later found out to be the work of Mike Gunton [One Life, Planet Earth II]. Taking shots under natural circumstances and manipulating that footage through editorial curation and music and speed changes and camerawork—I was very impressed with how much I felt when I watched these stories unfold.

We began emulating a lot of the techniques, and then, when I finally met Mike Gunton years later, I showed him and the BBC the footage that we were doing and how that was influenced by what they had done. Through that friendship, he came to me with the idea to access the Masai Mara with drones, which had never been done before.

What surprised or moved you about the making of Lion?

As we entered into this project, generative AI came online, and there’s a tremendous influx of content that you don’t know whether it’s authentic or not. The notion of going out into the field and limiting ourselves to completely analog tools and telling an authentic story that feels real, I find that engaging right now, in contrast to how much out there is fabricated.

Finding and engaging with this main character, Kio, was unexpected. We thought we were going to be following a pride of lions that had a matriarchy—which ended up being Kio’s aunt and mother—but what happened was the main character emerged as this small lion that was born out of cycle, was smaller than his siblings, and didn’t have great odds for survival. Each month, each year, this lion would emerge and face down these challenges, and it really felt like storytelling that had been created by a writer. I was very intrigued by this.

It’s a saga of a lion cub going through conflict and hardship, and there are plenty of parallels to The Lion King—even hyenas and a warthog. How self-conscious were you about making those connections?

It was hard to ignore over time, but it wasn’t like we set out to do this. Taking the step from extremely naturalistic computer-generated animation to doing a full documentary—that was what piqued my curiosity. The story we had nothing to do with. But as it emerged, it became clear that it felt very similar to The Lion King in many ways. Which, by the way, is a testament to the research that the original animated film team had put into those environments. They didn’t create things out of whole cloth. They curated from imagery and species that were in that environment. So when you go there and film, it just starts to echo, and I think that’s why that film is so enduring.

How did you ultimately choose that focus on Kio? Is it like casting a movie star?

We covered 50 lions at first. I mean, that’s how it works. You start by covering many, many storylines. What people will see is one tiny fraction of what we actually filmed. A lion’s life is for the most part uneventful. When it is eventful, it’s very, very compelling—but there is a lot of sleeping and resting and walking. It’s almost like reality television, where you’re following a lot of different storylines, and then in retrospect, we get to curate that. We looked at all four years of footage and then figured out the story that emerged, but Kio was compelling from the beginning because he’s just so adorable and had an uncanny resemblance to the way we depicted our lead lion in the CG Lion King. Also, to be honest with you, it’s easy to identify and empathize with a younger animal because, visually, they just make you just want to stare at them.

You do catch that lions sleep a lot, and I don’t think I've ever seen a nature documentary where they show how many flies are just sitting on their face.

Yeah, it’s tricky. We could have easily decided to bring it into one of the inexpensive CG tools and clean it up, but we made the decision that in this moment in time, making that commitment to showing things authentically feels like it might be appreciated.

Of course, the score feels like a touch of Hollywood.

Part of my job is always understanding the journey the audience is going on as I film something, write something, edit something, or score something. Showing it to [composer] Hans Zimmer, who has even more experience—he’s someone who’s been involved not just with filmmaking but specifically The Lion King story, from the original animated film through the theatrical production and collaborating with us on on our film. I showed it to him, and he felt it immediately. So he was involved for many years, watching the footage and seeing where it led. And you know, it’s like following a sports team: You don't know what's going to happen, you’re rooting for things to happen, but you have no control.

Can you envision a kid who’s watched the Lion King films or the Broadway show drawn to Lion as a companion piece?

I know that for me, things that I engaged with when I was younger turned into things that I continued being curious about—and as I matured, my understanding of those subjects matured. And anytime you can get multiple generations to watch together? I think part of what’s appealing about the way the lions exist in prides—but also specifically this story—is that there are bonds, intergenerational bonds. You see Kio’s mother’s sacrifice and how hard it is, especially in this environment, to ensure the flourishing of your offspring. That feels very human to me, and it’s something I think both parents and children can relate to.