The Lion King II

The Lion King II: Simba's Pride (later retitled The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride) is a 1998 American animated direct-to-video film produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Walt Disney Animation Australia and released on October 27, 1998 by Walt Disney Home Video (aka Buena Vista Home Entertainment). The film is the sequel to the 1994 Disney animated blockbuster The Lion King. It was later re-released as a special edition DVD (which altered the original title's "II" into "2") on August 31, 2004. It was also re-released again on Blu-ray alongside The Lion King and The Lion King 1½. The Blu-ray edition was "placed into the Disney Vault" on April 30, 2013.

The film centers around Simba and Nala's daughter, Kiara, who strongly falls in love with Kovu, a male lion who was raised in a pride of Scar's followers and Simba's enemies, the Outsiders. Desperate to be together, they must overcome the two obstacles that are keeping them apart: Kovu's mother, Zira, and Simba's prejudices against the Outsiders. It also centers around Simba's father-daughter relationship with Kiara, who has a desire for taking care of herself and being on her own, under her father's protection. While the original film's plot seems to have been inspired on theShakespearean play Hamlet, this sequel's plot is similar to another Shakespearean play, Romeo and Juliet.

Discussion began about the possibility of a sequel to The Lion King before the first film even hit theaters. Most of the original cast reprised their roles from the first film, with the notable exceptions of Rowan Atkinson, who was replaced by Edward Hibbert as the voice of Zazu in this film and its follow-up/predecessor The Lion King 1½ and Jeremy Irons, who was replaced by Scar's singing voice actor from the first film Jim Cummings as the voice of Scar in this film. Also, Madge Sinclair, who was the voice of Simba's mother Sarabi in the first film, died before this film was released, therefore her character was written out and does not appear.