‘The Lion King’ Director Left Disney After His ‘Baby’ Was Rejected

Roger Allers joined Disney in 1985, becoming part of a group of artists tasked with reviving public interest in Disney’s animated films by producing fresh theatrical releases. Allers directed his first feature picture, the Oscar-winning The Lion King (1994), which was adapted into a smash-hit Broadway musical.

The filmmaker spent the next many years at Disney, contributing to every animated feature film the company released. Among these are Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Rescuers Down Under, The Little Mermaid, and The Prince and the Pauper. Allers would later leave the studio after one of his projects was rejected.

Roger Allers’ 1994 film ‘The Lion King’ was a massive success

Twenty-five years before Jon Favreau’s 2019 photorealistic remake, co-directors Allers, Rob Minkoff, and a crew of primarily rookie animators made a masterpiece out of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ first original project, The Lion King.

Most of the Disney Feature Animation personnel and studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg thought The Lion King was less essential than Pocahontas. To their surprise, The Lion King’s original theatrical run grossed $767 million worldwide.

The movie would become the pinnacle of Disney’s spectacular animation revival of the ’90s. It enthralled audiences in a way not seen since Walt himself started the tradition with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Today, it appears like The Lion King has more fans than any other animated film, including Snow White.

Roger Allers left Disney after his project ‘Tam Lin’ was rejected

In 2014, Allers did an interview with the Italian comic website Fumettologica. The interview — available in Italian and English — is an excellent read. Allers discussed the challenges he had getting films greenlit at Disney studios after co-directing The Lion King.

After completing work on Lilo & Stitch, at Roy E. Disney’s request, Allers dived fully into adapting a Scottish fairy tale, Tam Lin. The protagonist of the tale, a human named Tam Lin, must pass a series of trials to rescue her love from the Queen of Fairies.

Sadly, according to the YouTube channel MsMojo, the Tam Lin pitch was made during a challenging time at Disney. Roy Disney and Michael Eisner were locked in a heated battle over the company’s future. Once Eisner recognized the project was Roy’s “baby,” in an alleged power move, he declined to greenlight it.

In the 12 years following the release of The Lion King, Allers’ only other directing credit at Disney was the Oscar-nominated short, The Little Matchgirl (2006). According to the filmmaker, shooting took place almost entirely in secrecy because that was the only way to get the job done.

Allers eventually left Disney after Tam Lin was rejected.

What projects has Roger Allers worked on since leaving Disney?

Allers has not done much post-Disney. In May 2003, it was reported that the filmmaker would be co-directing Tam Lin for Sony Pictures Animation. However, according to Allers, the execs at Sony who had invited him to do that story for them could not seem to agree on an approach after two years of development work.

In 2004, Allers joined a different project, Open Season, as an additional director alongside Jill Culton and co-director Anthony Stacchi. The film included the voice acting of Martin Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher. Additionally, Allers took charge of the storyboards and the overall production of an animated version of The Prophet in 2012.

The film premiered in a rough cut form at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2014. It received a restricted distribution the following year in August 2015.

In his interview with Fumettologica, Allers revealed he’s also penned a stage musical, an independent animation film (Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet), and a short puppet show for a charity working to alleviate world hunger. 

It’s such a pity that Tam Lin, a project that had the potential to be an outstanding film, was rejected because of studio politics.