This is good and bad news for fans of the Lion King. A new rumor is floating around Orlando Florida that the Animal Kingdom, home of The Kilimanjaro Safari Ride and Avatar’s Pandora land will allegedly be adding a family-friendly dark ride to the park based on the Lion King. First, how much can we trust this rumor? Well, it hasn’t been confirmed, but there was a permit filed last month in Orange County Florida for a new building between the Pizzafari restaurant and the existing Lion King show. The permit declares its purpose as to: “Provide labor, material and/or electrical for construction.”
SO, how is this both a good and a bad thing? Well, any Lion King dark ride is potentially a great thing, but the rumor is that this new ride will be based on the upcoming live-action (CGI) version and not on the animated classic. The problem with the new Live-action adaptations of Disney classics is that the CGI looks dated by the time the film is released, while the animation in the classic films has a timeless quality that holds up over generations of new viewers.
We really hope that this rumor is half true. We’d love to see a great new Disney Dark ride based around the Lion King, but we hope that the new ride will be based around the cartoon and not the upcoming live-action remake.