“Lion King” to close

Lion King cast members learn they’ll be joining the ranks of the unemployed.

MGM Resorts International announced today that it is “extending” The Lion King through the end of next year … which is a nice way of saying they’re pulling the plug on the show on Dec. 30, 2011. It should also light a fire under ticket sales now that the show’s entering its “last 448 performances!” or whatever. Despite being the most visually creative of the Strip spectacles, The Lion King‘s score never measured up to Phantom of the Opera or Jersey Boys and maybe the whole shebang was too highbrow for Las Vegas. Who knows? There’ll be time aplenty to hash out that question.

After all, if Lion King qualifies as intellectual fare, what then to make of the inscrutable antics of Cirque du Soleil? By coincidence — or is it? — Cirque will be opening the road version of its much-ballyhooed Michael Jackson extravaganza on Dec. 15 at the adjacent Mandalay Bay Event Center. (Knowing Cirque, it won’t make that deadline.) Cirque will also be developing a casino-friendly version “for a Vegas showroom and [to] open in early 2013.”

What a remarkably convenient twist of fate that the M’Bay showroom will become available at the very moment that Cirque will be figuring out how to downsize its touring Jacko show in such a way that it can play 10 times weekly. Cirque big shots have coveted the M’Bay theater for some time and not been discreet about it, either. At first blush, it would appear their envious wish has come true.