1974–1985: Animator Despite not getting the chance to meet Walt Disney, Allers graduated with a
Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) at
Arizona State University (ASU) in 1971. For the next two years, he moved to
Greece and during his time, Allers met Leslee Hackenson, his future wife, in
Crete. For a time, they lived in a cave and sold paintings and crafts that they made to earn money for food and other supplies. Infuriated, Woolverton protested to
Peter Schneider, then-president of Walt Disney Feature Animation. Schneider suggested she and Allers worked together more closely in the same room. Throughout the storyboarding process, Woolverton arrived in Allers' office, which he shared with Brenda Chapman, to discuss the scenes that needed to be rewritten. From there, relations between Woolverton and the story team improved as she became more accustomed to the storyboarding process. When he reflected on the experience, Allers stated: "For the scriptwriter it must be frustrating to be reworking and reworking. I guess that's what's the storyboard process is. That's why we put our sketches up in little pins, because it all comes down, lots of times. You rework it, and rework it, and craft it."
1991–1994: The Lion King When
Beauty and the Beast was nearly finished, Allers joined the
King of the Jungle project as a director, alongside
George Scribner. Allers attended brainstorming sessions with Scribner and Woolverton. However, Musker and Clements asked Allers to help storyboard sequences for
Aladdin (1992). On
April Fools' Day 1992,
Rob Minkoff was added as a co-director.
The Lion King became the highest-grossing film released in 1994 and was the highest-grossing animated film (at the time), in which it earned over $700 million worldwide. Despite the praise,
The Lion King was believed to have shared similarities with
Osamu Tezuka's 1950 manga
Jungle Emperor Leo, which became known in the United States as
Kimba the White Lion. In 2015, Allers clarified he was made aware of the similarities as
The Lion King was being completed. He further stated: "I could certainly understand
Kimbas creators feeling angry if they felt we had stolen ideas from them. If I had been inspired by
Kimba, I would certainly acknowledge my inspiration. All I can offer is my respect to those artists and say that their creation has its loyal admirers and its assured place in animation history." Their story shared similarities with
Mark Twain's 1882 novel
The Prince and the Pauper and
Anthony Hope's adventure novel
The Prisoner of Zenda. Meanwhile,
Disney Theatrical Group, headed by Schumacher and Peter Schneider, had found success with the Broadway musical
Beauty and the Beast (1994).
Joe Roth, who had replaced
Jeffrey Katzenberg as studio chairman, proposed another idea: "Why aren't you doing
The Lion King? How can it miss?" Eisner agreed and pushed heavily for a
Lion King stage musical, and Schneider and Schumacher eventually agreed. Schumacher hired
Julie Taymor, whose work he had known at the Los Angeles Festival of the Arts, as the musical director. Allers and Mecchi were nominated for the
Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical among eleven other nominations.
The Lion King won six Tony Awards, including for
Best Musical. In 1997,
Mark Dindal, who had directed
Warner Bros.' ''
Cats Don't Dance, joined Kingdom of the Sun
as a co-director, alongside Allers. Both him and Dindal had known each other while working on The Little Mermaid
(1989). During the summer of 1998, it became apparent that Kingdom of the Sun'' was not far along enough in production to be released in 2000 as planned. During test screenings, Dindal's sequences took a lighthearted, comedic approach opposite of Allers' more serious, straightforward vision. Allers reflected: "I was thrilled with the idea because it was a favorite story of mine. The idea of doing it as a musical piece and to do it justice was a thrill." According to co-producer Baker Bloodworth, the project was intended for a
Fantasia sequel, which was envisioned as a "compilation of shorts that featured music and was to be representative of different sounds and cultures." Allers stated, "My Celtic story,
Tam Lin had ultimately been rejected. It was evidently too passionate. They were really looking for a comedy. The market was just driven by comedies at the time. Audiences were responding very well." A year later, Allers was recruited as an additional director on
Open Season (2006) alongside director
Jill Culton and co-director
Anthony Stacchi. The film featured the voice talents of
Martin Lawrence and
Ashton Kutcher. Based on an original pitch from
Steve Moore,
Open Season centers on the unlikely friendship between Boog, a domesticated
grizzly bear, and Elliott, a one-antlered
mule deer. After
Open Season was released, Allers expressed he had grown "weary of big studio politics and was ready to develop something on my own outside of the context of a big studio." That same year,
Salma Hayek sought to adapt
Kahlil Gibran's
The Prophet into an 2D animated film. Allers was contacted through a mutual friend about the project and reflected he had read Gibran's writings as a college student. He told
Variety: "I had been profoundly affected by the book when I was in college, so when that offer popped up I was very excited to do it." In January 2012, it was announced that Allers would oversee the narrative structure, as well as supervise the production of an animated adaptation of
The Prophet. In May 2014, a work-in-progress version of
The Prophet (2014) was screened at the
Cannes Film Festival. The film later premiered at the
Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, 2014. It was released in select theaters throughout the United States on August 7, 2015. In 2023, Allers wrote the book and lyrics for an original stage musical called
The Grasshopper based on the life of
Jean de la Fontaine. A
table reading of the musical premiered at the
Pacific Resident Theatre in
Venice, California on October 7. ==Personal life and death==