'LION KING' EVEN BETTER ON IMAX SCREEN.

Byline: Sandra Barrera Staff Writer

Today, when ``The Lion King'' comes roaring back into theaters, it will be bigger than ever before. Six to eight stories tall to be exact.

How else would you expect the lion cub Simba, who comes of age under the tutelage of a comic duo - the warthog Pumbaa and meerkat Timon - after the tragic death of his father, to fill the enormous IMAX screen?

According to the folks at Walt Disney Pictures, they managed this by doing more than just blowing up the original 1994 classic.

The film has been refined from start to finish with greater eye-popping detail and sound capable of rattling the audience to its core.

Combined, the effect is most noticeable during the scene in which Simba is lured into the path of stampeding wildebeests by his treacherous uncle's hyena henchmen so that he can never be king. But it is Simba's father, King Mufasa, who gets trampled to death while saving his son.

``That's one of the most visceral and physically involving scenes for the audience,'' Don Hahn, producer of ``The Lion King,'' says. ``You feel the wildebeests coming over you and you feel the sound all around you.''

``The Lion King'' is the fourth in a series of major Disney animated features to be adapted for the giant screen. ``Fantasia 2000'' was the first, followed by ``Beauty and the Beast'' and ``Treasure Planet,'' which was the first new film to be simultaneously released at multiplexes and IMAX theaters.

Soon Disney will be adding to its ranks of IMAX wonders a string of new live-action features, including the 2003 remake of ``Black Stallion,'' as well as the James Cameron-directed ``Ghosts of the Abyss'' and the wildlife documentary ``Birds of Prey.''

With an existing film, though, the process is different. It begins by blowing up the original, projecting it on a giant screen and then looking for little flaws: faceless animals in the distance, loose brush strokes or spots where the grain of the paper is visible.

Scenes are redrawn or touched up.

``Part of the illusion of animation is that you don't want the audience to see the hand of the artist,'' Hahn says. ``This was our chance to refine those flaws so that when you do blow it up, it's fairly flawless.''

But don't worry: The story is still the same coming-of-age allegory that Thomas Schumacher, Walt Disney Feature Animation head and executive producer of ``The Lion King,'' says ``has been translated into 32 languages, from Swedish to Zulu, because its message about community, stepping up and taking your place, accepting responsibility, resonates no matter where you go.''

After its release, ``The Lion King'' went on to become the most successful animated feature of all time. Still is.

The film has grossed more than $771 million worldwide and spawned TV cartoons, video games and home videos - the latest being 2004's ``The Lion King 1 1/2,'' which retells the story from the perspective of Timon and Pumbaa. Even a critically acclaimed Broadway musical followed. (The L.A. version of it will wrap up its run at the Pantages Theatre on Jan. 12.

``We never had a sense when we first made our little cartoon that it would go out and become a success, much less a worldwide phenomenon like 'Lion King' has become,'' says Hahn. ``One of our directors, Roger Allers, went to China on a trip just a few months ago.

``He was in the remotest part in a marketplace, and there's a guy wearing a Simba T-shirt, Hahn says with a chuckle. ``It's one of those things: Something that really has captured people's imaginations. That's why it's really fun to bring it back and let people revisit it with their kids who maybe haven't seen it.''

--For more information, go to disney.go.com/disneypictures and click on the ``Lion King'' icon.

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(color) Artists added additional detail to help 'The Lion King' make the transition to the IMAX format.