10 Disney Films With Shockingly Dark Source Material
5. The Lion King
A 90's childhood favourite, the emotional trauma of losing Mufasa is a memory that will live long in the memories of all who grew up with this Disney classic. But it could have been so much worse. Disney's The Lion King is actually loosely based on Shakespeare's Hamlet, a play notorious for its over the top bloodshed even by Shakespeare's impressive standards.
Whereas our poor young hearts could barely deal with just the one dead Lion (I can still hear that stampede to this day), Hamlet goes one step further and kills, well, everybody. Upon finally exacting revenge on his evil uncle who betrayed his father, Hamlet eventually also dies due to a poison blade. Mercifully the clever people over at Disney creating this kids movie decided that all this was a touch morbid and pg'd it up for us all.
Painful childhood memories apart, we should all be glad that Simba managed to make it out of The Lion King unscathed. Shakespeare was less kind to his heroes, just ask- oh, well nobody I guess.