Disney’s remake of the classic animation The “Lion King” hit Chinese theaters on July 12 and grossed 507 million yuan (about 74.5 million U.S. dollars) in a week.

Many fans watched the film with lots of childhood nostalgia, so here are some fun facts to know about both movies. 

“King of the Jungle”

"The Lion King" was first called the “King of Jungle”. But later Disney realized that lions actually don’t live in the jungle, so they changed to the current name. But, why are lions called “the king of the jungle” if they don’t live there?

The word “jungle” derives from Hindi, meaning “not an inhabited place” covering grasslands and desserts, not necessarily a tropical forest.

There comes a lion

The song “The Circle of Life”, nominated for Best Original Song in 1994's Academy Award's, is so powerful, that Disney decided to the scene in the trailer, making it the first complete scene Disney ever used as a promo.

The passionate call at the beginning of the song is sang in Zulu, a South African language. It literally means “There comes a lion”. 

Mufasa and Scar

Mufasa and Scar were not  brothers in the early scripts but later, the writers thought the story would be more interesting if the two were related.

Some of Timon and Pumbaa’s lines were recorded without a script

Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen were the first choices for the beloved characters Timon and Pumbaa in the new “The Lion King”. To prepare, they were asked to run through their script in a black-box theater with cameras everywhere.

Billy Eichner recalled with The Sun: “He (Jon Favreau) made us put down the scripts and improvise the entire movie". "We did it a few times and a lot of those lines are from that day and they used the lines in the movie. Seth has a hilarious joke about the bugs we are eating being local which was really funny," he added.

“Pumbaa” means lazy in Swahili

The “Lion King” takes place in Africa and Swahili is a common language in various parts of the continent. Many words used in the story are Swahili, the most well-known of which is “Hakuna Matata”, which means “no worries”.

“Pumbaa” means “lazy” and "careless” in Swahili, perfectly reflecting the beloved warthog's personality. He is also the first-ever Disney character to fart on the big screen.