

The book writers were given a Tony Nomination for their work in 1998. The original movie’s writers, Roger Allers and Irene Mecchi, who also wrote Disney films like The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Fantasia, were called back to write the book for this Broadway musical. In 2013 The Lion King beat both Wicked and Phantom of the Opera to become the highest grossing Broadway production of all time and in January 2014 the show became the first Broadway show to gross over the one billion dollar mark in total ticket sales revenue. In 2020 the show was set to perform on tour in Wuhan, China but this tour was cancelled due to the outbreak of the deadly Coronavirus. The musical has now been performed in over 25 different countries on every single continent, except for Antarctica. The Lion King musical production has toured all around the world and has been translated into many languages including Chinese, German, Japanese and Spanish. The Broadway production began performing at the end of 1997 in the New Amsterdam Theatre, since then, the production has moved to the much larger, Minskoff Theatre which the show has made its permanent home.

The 1994 film was selected by Disney to be made into its own Broadway musical production in 1996, after the films initial box-office success that garnered Disney over $766 million in the first year of the release. The Lion King is a six-time Tony Award winning Broadway musical based on the original hit Walt Disney movie classic film of the same name.
