A new TV series, produced by BBC Studios Natural History Unit\u00a0for National Geographic, takes us to the plains of the Maasai Mara to follow an extraordinary lion cub.<\/p>\n
Lion chronicles four years in the life of Kio, a lion in Kenya\u2019s Maasai Mara, as he grows from a tiny cub to a powerful king.<\/p>\n
The crew, which included local filmmakers, spent nearly 1,400 days filming across 52 shoots \u2013 with the production team saying that this is the most time ever spent in the field exclusively following a single pride.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter tracking the lions in the field for four years, the pride never ceased to surprise us \u2013 what Kio endures and eventually becomes is extraordinary,\u201d says one of the series\u2019 executive producers, Jon Favreau.<\/p>\n
\u201cWatching the hero\u2019s journey against the backdrop of nature was incredible to witness.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the first time that lions were filmed with drones in this particular location, allowing the filmmakers to capture everyday life within the pride. The filming crew were aided by specialist, local field guides to track the lions \u2013 although occasionally, they awoke to find a lion sleeping on a tent porch in their fenceless camp. <\/p>\n
The series echoes the themes of the animated Disney film The Lion King, with Favreau (who directed the 2019 remake) flexing his storytelling skills in this cinematic, emotionally-charged epic rooted in real-life drama. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Lion airs in the US on National Geographic on 19 August and is internationally available on Disney+ and Hulu on 20 August.<\/p>\n
Top image: lion cub Kio from Lion. Credit: National Geographic\/SophieDarlington<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new TV series, produced by BBC Studios Natural History Unit\u00a0for National Geographic, takes us to the plains…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[85,46,141,386],"class_list":["post-584695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}