He’s the megastar director behind Disney’s biggest live action hit. When Jon Favreau’s The Lion King came out in 2019, it raked in a record-breaking $1.66billion dollars (£1.3billion) at the box office.
But it left Jon with a question. Could the movie’s plot – in which exiled cub Simba grows up to take over his pride – be recreated in real life? So he got in touch with Mike Gunton, creative director of the BBC’s Natural History Unit.
The new documentary LION, from National Geographic, is the result of their blockbuster collaboration. Here Mike tells Meg Jorsh all about it…
Members of Kio’s pride relaxing by a water hole(Image: National Geographic/Eric Averdung)
Deep into the endless summer holidays, I’m about to speak to Mike Gunton by video call. I shut the attic door so the kids can’t wander in – and then I start to worry. The cat.
My cat, Mog, doesn’t like it when any doors, anywhere are shut. It’s not about whether he wants to come into the room. He just like to know that he can.
So when Mike pops up in my Zoom window, the weirdness of cats is still on my mind. After all, he’s just spent four years watching them for new series LION, out next week on National Geographic and Disney+.
“Biologically, lions are weird,” he explains. “Which is why they’re so exciting. Most cats are non-social – almost all of them are solitary. Their social interactions are either with their young or when it comes to courtship.
“Lions are more like dogs. Lions are social cats. Dogs are social carnivores, so wolf packs, dog packs, all those kinds of creatures tend to be social.”
I’m strangely relieved to hear it. A realistic version of the Lion King – in which the animals make friends, fall in love and mourn the loss of dead relatives – is immediately more plausible.
LION crew members Joe Treddenick and Sophie Darlington(Image: National Geographic/Joe Treddenick)
There’s obviously no singing in LION, but the plot is almost eerily familiar. It follows the journey of Kio, a real cub in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve, as he rises to become ruler of his pride.
And with lion cub survival rates just 50%, it’s the result of a nailbiting 1,000 hours of filming. “Poor Jon,” laughs Mike. “Every time I spoke to him, which was every week, it would always begin with ‘Is Kio still alive?’
“That’s why it was mad doing it. I think we pulled it off, but funnily enough, the further you go through with it, the worse it gets. You’ve made more investment, more connection with the animal.
“Obviously we thought about how we could tell it if he was killed, or died, or disappeared, but I kept on pushing that to the back of my mind and hoping it wouldn’t happen.”
Starting out as the youngest and most vulnerable of his pride, we see Kio battle to earn the respect of his brothers. He is lovingly supported by mum Summer, even as she resorts to desperate measures to survive.
Kio’s loving mum Summer(Image: National Geographic)
But when tragedy strikes, the young lions are forced to lean on each other while they learn to survive on their own.
“This idea of the dispassionate filmmaker is a load of old whatsit,” admits Mike. “Of course you’re invested. What hopefully comes across in this film is that their lives are tough.
“You see the decisions they make, or somebody else makes in their family, or some event occurs which can impact their lives and you’re absolutely caught up in it. You feel like they’re your brother.”
And for Mike, that’s a very important idea. He wants to tell the animals’ stories in a way his audience will relate to – and what better structure to hang it on than a film millions of people have seen?
He adds: “It’s a very tough life, being a wild animal. One of the things I’ve learned in making this series is how tough it is to be a male lion.
“I think also there’s a lot to be reflected in the power of social connections, and wanting to do right by your offspring, or by your relatives. I think it’s an uplifting thing to talk about.”
It comes at a time of change for nature documentaries, which for decades were inseparable from the soothing tones of David Attenborough. With the veteran presenter now 100 years old, filmmakers are looking for new ways to draw in the public.
Male lions Olepolos, Osapuk and Orkitok(Image: National Geographic/Simon Blakeney)
Mike, who’s worked with the national treasure for more than 40 years, warns they will never be able to replace him.
“There’s never going to be a new Attenborough,” he says. “He is unique, and has defined so much about what it is to be a wildlife presenter, and that partly is historical, because it started when he kind of invented it.
“But that does not mean there will not be other ways of telling stories. I’ve just done a series with Tom Hanks, I’ve done a series with Jon Favreau. There are other voices, other perspectives.”
That’s not to say the naturalist has finally retired, he adds. “I’d be in terrible trouble from him if I said ‘oh yeah, David’s retired.’ He’d be the first to say ‘no, I haven’t.’”
- LION is now out on National Geographic, airing in two weekly double bills at 8pm and 9pm. All four episodes stream from August 20 on Disney+.