In 1969, while Hedren was filming Satan's Harvest in Mozambique, she and Marshall had occasion to observe a pride of lions move into a recently vacated house, driven by increased poaching.

During production, the cast and crew members faced dangerous situations; 70 people, including the film's stars, were injured in attacks from the untrained animals on set.

Although he is due to pick up his wife Madeleine and their children John, Jerry, and Melanie from the airport to bring them to his home, he is delayed by his friend Mativo, warning him that a committee is coming to review his grant.

Eventually Togar attacks them and although Hank sees the assault and tries to intervene, the lion kills Prentiss and Rick before returning to the house to battle Robbie.

Expert and experienced animal trainers such as Frank Tom, Steve Miller and Rick Glassey were given acting parts as committee members attacked by tigers.

[23] It was an amazing thing to see: The lions were sitting in the windows, they were going in and out of the doors, they were sitting on the verandas, they were on the top of the Portuguese house, and they were in the front of the house [...] It was such a unique thing to see and we thought, for a movie, let us use the great cats as our stars.Marshall and Hedren discussed the film with their family (Melanie Griffith, Joel, John, and Jerry Marshall), who liked the idea and agreed to participate as actors, except Joel, who preferred to be the art director and set decorator.

[20] Marshall was also inspired by Mack Sennett's slapstick routines, and decided to incorporate a mixture of comedy, drama, and moments of "stark terror" in the human and animal encounters, with an underlying message of the need for the preservation of African wildlife.

The script developed with frequent changes but always allowing for inclusion of spontaneous actions by the animals, such as playing with the family's boat or riding a skateboard.

[26] A flat roof was installed on the house, the surrounding land's Californian desert characteristics were adapted to mimic Tanzania, by the planting of thousands of cottonwoods and Mozambique bushes, and a nearby creek was dammed to create a lake.

[39][40] After Marshall took in two infant Siberian tigers and an African bull elephant named Timbo from the Okanagan Game Preserve, he decided to revise the film's script to include different animals, and changed the formerly leo-centric title to Roar.

[61] In the scenes where some of the big cats are shot and killed by hunters, the effect was achieved by filming the animals when they were tranquilized for their annual blood draw.

[37] Although Hedren has claimed that principal photography ended on October 16, 1979, after just over three years,[62] additional pick-up shots were filmed in Kenya during the editing stage.

[44] Noel Marshall was bitten through the hand when he interacted with male lions during a fight scene; doctors initially feared that he might lose his arm.

[72][52] Most members of the crew were injured, including de Bont, who was scalped by Cherries while he was filming under a tarpaulin;[73][51][74] he received 220 sutures, but resumed his duties after recovering.

[74] While Roar was initially screened internationally on February 22, 1981, by Noel and John Marshall, its world premiere was held in Sydney, Australia on October 30, 1981.

[59] Hedren canceled an interview with the Associated Press after the Roar Foundation and Shambala Preserve's board of directors asked her not to speak publicly about the film, although she stated through a spokesman that its Drafthouse promotion was filled with "inaccuracies".

According to the site's critical consensus: "Roar may not satisfy in terms of acting, storytelling, or overall production, but the real-life danger onscreen makes it difficult to turn away.

Although Variety praised its intended message ("a passionate plea" to preserve African wildlife), Roar was described as "a kind of Jaws of the jungle" which seemed "at times more like Born Free gone berserk"; its "thin" plot was also noted.

"[94] Time Out, in a review published in 2004, disliked the film's "ingenuous documentary portrait of the Marshalls as mega-eccentrics and misguided animal lovers", and called its narrative a "farcical melange of pseudo David Attenborough and Disneyspeak" with "bizarre contradictions" and "fickle camerawork.

[4] On a more negative note, Jordan Hoffman of The Guardian thought the film had little story to offer and described it as "a tad incoherent", picking up on Hank's confusing background.

Hoffman criticized the film's dialogue, describing a scene of Hedren and Griffith's mother and daughter characters discussing sex as "undeniably creepy".

[97] Amy Nicholson in LA Weekly observed the subjugation of the script to the boisterous impulses of the animal cast and noted that the actors seemed keen to get through their scenes quickly; this, she said, conflicted with the film's goal of proving "big cats are lovable".

[98] Rene Rodriguez of the Miami Herald was displeased with the film's editing, saying it was "pasted together into a threadbare story", producing "a hysterically bad, awful movie".

[99] Flavorwire included the re-release in their monthly "So Bad It's Good" review; writer Jason Bailey saw Roar as "a cross between a nature special, a home movie, a snuff film, and a key exhibit at a sanity hearing" with animals inflicting "horrifying bloodshed" before abruptly becoming "cuddly kittens, accompanied by a sappy string score" and said much of the film consisted of "odd, semi-improvised" dialogue.

[43] Hedren founded the Roar Foundation, and established the Shambala Preserve sanctuary in Soledad Canyon in 1983 to house the animals after filming was completed.

[3] The film has been mentioned by authors Harry and Michael Medved in the 1984 book The Hollywood Hall of Shame as "the most expensive home movie ever made" due to its inflated budget.

[59][66] Hedren stated in her book she and Noel realized that, while they accomplished their goal (to "capture wild animals in an astonishing and absolutely unique way"), the story was poorly made and secondary to "the actions, reactions and interactions of the big cats".

Hedren, however, noted a positive outcome for those who worked on Roar: many of the people involved went on to have successful careers or jobs in the film industry, such as de Bont and Griffith.

[45][104] A non-anamorphic version of the film was originally released on DVD[29] but, as stocks dwindled, it became a cult item and was listed at high prices on Amazon and eBay.

The Blu-ray bonus features included audio commentary by John Marshall and Tim League, "The Making of ROAR" featurette, and a Q&A with the cast and crew at Cinefamily in Los Angeles.