According to Time, a Broadway musical based on The Lion King almost ended up with a crazy plot twist of Simba ending up as a gladiator in Las Vegas!

At storytelling convention The Nantucket Projec, director Julie Taymor confessed that she didn't plan to end up her broadway adaptation of Disney's classic in traditional way. She said that in her original idea, Simba never comes back to Pridelands become king. Instead, “he goes to the desert. And in the desert, he comes out of the jungle… And he sees Vegas.”

As silly as it may sound, it turns out that wasn't a joke, as Taymor said to her laughing audience, then she proceeded to explain the rest of the story. She had plans to introduce in a new villain named Papa Croc, who had a teamed up with Scar to buy all the water in the Pride Lands. The water was used to build a desert oasis named Las Vegas.

And how does Simba find himself in that place? “And here comes Simba the wild beast from the jungle, and he falls for Papa Croc because he doesn’t have a father,”. But the evil Papa Croc puts Simba into the Coliseum and forces him to fight against other animals in gladiator show.

Sounds as crazy and unrealistic as one of Timon&Pumbaa TV show episodes, isn't it? Needles to say that Disney Theatricals weren't thrilled by the idea of their classic story ending up in such... eccentric way, so Taymor's idea was scrapped to create the musical we all know and love.

"It was the right thing that happened in this collaboration," Taymor says, "Which is he knew we don't need to go that far, but I figured out how to do the animal and the human."

“I still think it would be fun to make,” said Taymor. No ofense, but let's hope she doesn't get a chance.