The Lion King as a recurring summon, as well as a playable in the "Lion King" world, known as Pride Lands, in "Kingdom Hearts II". There the plotline is loosely related to the later part of the original film, with all of the main characters except Zazu and Sarabi. "The Lion King" also provides one of the worlds featured in the 2011 action-adventure game "Disney Universe", and Simba was featured in the Nintendo DS title "Disney Friends" (2008). Walt Disney Theatrical produced a musical stage adaptation of the same name, which premiered in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 1997, and later opened on Broadway
Simba of inspiration. Before "The Lion King", Henn's experience as a supervising animator was limited to predominantly female characters; he had just recently completed work on Ariel from "The Little Mermaid" (1989), Belle from "Beauty and the Beast" (1991) and Jasmine from "Aladdin" (1992). When he became involved with "The Lion King", Henn initially expressed interest in animating the film's villain, Scar, because he wanted to do "something different." However, producer Don Hahn felt that he was better suited for animating Simba. Henn approaches animating new characters by "put[ting himself] into the character’s situation." Simba proved to be a challenge because