{"id":42062,"date":"2026-08-13T01:29:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T20:29:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=42062"},"modified":"2026-08-13T01:29:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T20:29:36","slug":"jon-favreau-on-his-first-documentary-nat-geos-lion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=42062","title":{"rendered":"Jon Favreau on His First Documentary, Nat Geo&#8217;s &#8216;Lion&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tWhen renowned wildlife producer Mike Gunton approached \u201cThe Lion King\u201d director <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/jon-favreau\/\" id=\"auto-tag_jon-favreau\" data-tag=\"jon-favreau\">Jon Favreau<\/a> about collaborating on a documentary, the director, who had never made a doc, immediately said yes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tIt was 2022, and Gunton, an executive producer at BBC Studios Natural History Unit, wanted to \u201csupersize\u201d his \u201cDynasties\u201d series about vulnerable or endangered species, and make a multipart doc focused on one species. At the time Favreau and Gunton were working together on the first season of \u201cPrehistoric Planet,\u201d a natural-history show that tells the last days of the dinosaur using CGI.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cIt wasn\u2019t like I wanted to do a documentary,\u201d said Favreau. \u201cIt was more that I really enjoyed working with Mike and his team. They went from my world \u2014 the digital world and then I went to their world, which was the documentary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOver the course of four years, Favreau and Gunton worked with a production team that included producers, researchers, editors and cinematographers Simon Blakeney and Sophie Darlington to create National Geographic\u2019s \u201cLion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cMike had the ambition of following a single pride of lions in a way that had never been done before, and it meant hanging up all the tools that I was comfortable with, like CGI, and going completely analog,\u201d said Favreau. \u201cWe made a rule that we were not going to do any digital augmentation, not paint things out, and not manipulate the footage.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe four-part series follows a lion cub named Kio, who faces loss, exile and fierce rivals in a fight to survive and become a king. Filmed in Kenya\u2019s Maasai Mara, \u201cLion\u201d is the first natural history production to document a lion\u2019s complete journey from cub to king. The crew, including local Kenyan filmmaker Faith Musembi, logged nearly 1,400 filming days across 52 shoots \u2014 the most time ever spent in the field exclusively following a single pride. <\/p>\n<p>It was a daunting project that Gunton knew Favreau would be interested in executive producing, and not just because he had directed both the 2019 live-action remake of the animated classic \u201cThe Lion King\u201d and \u201cThe Jungle Book.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we first met, Jon told me that he had been using \u201cDynasties\u201d as a reference for how (lions) moved, how they behaved, and what their little micro movements were while making \u201cThe Lion King,\u201d said Gunton. \u201cSo, there was an immediate simpatico between us because he was fascinated by the logistics, the grammar, the style, the approach, and all the storytelling techniques in a documentary like \u2018Dynasties.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tTo find a main character for \u201cLion,\u201d the crew initially followed two prides in the Maasai Mara. Family trees were drawn up. Each lion in both prides had its own identification card, where details down to the whisker spots were logged. The production team relied on a network of local field guides to help them track the lions, who could be hard to find when hidden in bushes or mile after mile of long grass. Eventually the crew could identify up to 50 lions from different prides by name and family relationships. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were following prides, and within them there were male cubs, female cubs, big, powerful queens, and also other kings,\u201d said Guton. \u201cAny one of these characters could have ended up being the star. But quite quickly we found this female lion and her cub we called Kio.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Finding the main character for the series was a relief. It could also have been a nightmare, given that 50% of lion cubs don\u2019t make it to adulthood. Through parts of the rainy season, Kio couldn\u2019t be followed by the crew as the plains in the Maasai Mara became impassable. At other times, Kio and his brothers were hardly seen for weeks. Every check-in with the field team started with a question: \u201cHow\u2019s Kio \u2014 is he alive?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou really have to surrender yourself to what fate had in store,\u201d said Favreau. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have any recourse to change the outcomes. I\u2019m used to writing and creating shots and creating moments. Not knowing whether the lead character that emerged was going to survive through each rainy season was harrowing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As the series exec producer, Favreau helped take approximately 1,000 hours of footage and turn it into a comprehensive, four-hour story. Like Disney\u2019s \u201cThe Lion King,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/nat-geo\/\" id=\"auto-tag_nat-geo\" data-tag=\"nat-geo\">Nat Geo<\/a>\u2019s \u201cLion\u201d also tells the coming-of-age story of a male lion, which, Favreau said, was a fluke.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLess than half lion cubs survive to adulthood, so we didn\u2019t know what was going to present itself,\u201d said Favreau. \u201cWhat ended up emerging was the story of this one young, small lion that kept surviving and prevailing and growing and emerging and eventually reaching adulthood and becoming a leader in his own right. So, it did echo a hero\u2019s journey type story and ended up echoing a lot of Disney heroes and felt like it connected very much with \u2018The Lion King.\u2019 The fact that things played out the way that they did was not something we could have anticipated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although the story is reminiscent of \u201cThe Lion King\u201d and Hans Zimmer composed the score for \u201cLion,\u201d the series is real-life drama.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not jaws and claws nor is it saccharine,\u201d said Gunton. \u201cIt\u2019s true. It\u2019s what happens in nature. It\u2019s sometimes tough. It\u2019s sometimes beautiful. It\u2019s sometimes heartwarming. It\u2019s sometimes shocking. But nobody\u2019s going to say, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s been Disneyfied,\u2019 And nobody\u2019s going to say, \u201cOh, that\u2019s a bit tough. That\u2019s a bit horrible. That\u2019s a bit bloody.\u2019 I think we\u2019ve got the line pretty right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLion\u201d premieres on Aug. 19 on National Geographic and streams on Disney+ and Hulu on Aug. 20.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLion\u201d is produced by BBC Studios Natural History Unit for National Geographic. Favreau and Mike Gunton executive produce the series. Jane Atkins is series producer, and Simon Blakeney is co-executive producer. For National Geographic, Janet Han Vissering and Tom McDonald executive produce.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When renowned wildlife producer Mike Gunton approached \u201cThe Lion King\u201d director Jon Favreau about collaborating on a documentary, the director, who had never made a doc, immediately said yes. It was 2022, and Gunton, an executive producer at BBC Studios Natural History Unit, wanted to \u201csupersize\u201d his \u201cDynasties\u201d series about vulnerable or endangered species, and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/101_ChapterOne_APrinceIsBorn_Lion_UHD_69.jpg?w=1000&h=563&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}