The development of The Lion King started concurrently with Pocahontas, which most of the animators of Walt Disney Feature Animation decided to work on instead, believing it would be the more prestigious and successful of the two.[15] The story artists also did not have much faith in the project, with Chapman declaring she was reluctant to accept the job "because the story wasn't very good",[7] and writer Burny Mattinson saying to co-worker Joe Ranft about the film that "I don't know who is going to want to watch that one."[14] Most of the leading animators were either doing their first major work supervising a character, or had much interest in animating an animal.[8] Thirteen of these supervising animators, both in California and Florida, were responsible for establishing the personalities and setting the tone for the film's main characters. The animation leads for the main characters included Mark Henn on young Simba, Ruben A. Aquino on adult Simba, Andreas Deja on Scar, Aaron Blaise on young Nala, Anthony DeRosa on adult Nala, and Tony Fucile on Mufasa.[4] Nearly 20 minutes of the film, including the "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" sequence,[10] were animated at the Disney-MGM Studios facility. Ultimately, more than 600 artists, animators and technicians contributed to The Lion King over the course of its production.[12] Weeks before the film was to be released, production was affected by the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which shut off the studio and required the animators to finish their work from home.[21]
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