  Now
that “The New Lion King Show” (working title) has been officially
announced to replace Mickey’s ShowTime in Videopolis, fans are already
eagerly discussing what kind of style the show might have. Most
believe it could be very similar to the “Festival of The Lion King”
show in Disney’s Animal Kingdom (WDW), whilst others have noticed the
coincidence that earlier this year the “Legend of the Lion King”
puppet show closed in Magic Kingdom (WDW) to make way for “Mickey’s
PhilharMagic!”. The latter guess also makes you think that
because this show has now closed some of the puppets or sets might be
used for at least part of Disneyland Park’s new show. The
pictures above show what this intriguing past show looked like but, as
many fans agree, this kind of show would not fit in Videopolis.
This doesn’t mean we won’t see the puppets in Paris’ show though,
because although it looks like DLRP are going to try and make this
show as good as possible we do all still know about the very strict
budgets a company with �2bn+ of debt has, meaning some of the puppets
could be used to cut down some production costs on the show.
 The
first guess from fans, about Paris’ show being a reworked version of
Animal Kingdom’s “Festival of the Lion King”, actually seems much more
likely. This show has been highly praised for its fantastic
costumes, great music and wonderful atmosphere, and producing a
reworked copy of this show would mean the production costs would again
be smaller. The only problem with this is that the actual
choreography and stage elements would have to be changed considerably.
In Animal Kingdom this show is performed in a massive specially
constructed 1,375 seat “Theatre-In-The-Round”. This means that
that audience sits around the circular centre stage, so if this show
were to be duplicated for Videopolis then it would have to be changed
considerably to work on Videopolis’ semicircular stage. This
doesn’t mean other parts of this show couldn’t be used though, as it
is highly likely that DLRP could use the music or even some of the
costume designs.
 The
third guess, and the one which has created a lot of excitement about
this show among fans, is that the show could be based on the original
Broadway production of The Lion King. “The Lion King On
Broadway” is the winner of 24 major awards: six Tony� Awards,
including Best Musical, eight Drama Desk Awards, six Outer Critics
Circle Awards, the New York Drama Critics Award for Best Musical, a
1998 Theatre World Award, the Astaire Award for Outstanding
Choreography, a Drama League Award and a Grammy� Award for Best
Musical Show Album. A show like this playing in Videopolis might
seem impossible, but don’t forget that over the past couple of years
Disneyland Resort California has opened two major musical productions
that are probably the closest a theme park has ever come to a Broadway
show. These two productions, “Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular”
and “Snow White: An Enchanting New Musical”, aren’t quite up to the
standard of “The Lion King On Broadway” but they are still amazing
shows in their own right, especially since they are playing inside a
theme park! If DLRP were to use “The Lion King On Broadway” as
their inspiration for this show then the finished product would be an
amazing, spectacular musical production that would surely show all
guests that DLRP is still the “Number One” park for entertainment in
Europe! Obviously, because of the huge cost of a large musical
like “The Lion King On Broadway”, we can’t expect DLRP to produce a
show like this, but the simple fact that it could be a consideration
is exciting on its own! A show half as good as the Broadway
production would still be an amazing achievement in a theme park, let
alone Videopolis where the last two shows have simply been a cheap mix
of Disney songs!
We’re all now waiting
with great anticipation to hear more about this new show with major
potential! Sources:
DLP.info Forum,
Walt Disney
World Resort, The Lion King On Broadway
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