Mufasa, the prequel to Barry Jenkins’s The Lion King, will feature “a tonne of known characters,” the director has said. While at the D23 Expo in Anaheim, California, Jenkins gave a fresh interview to Entertainment Weekly, in which she discussed how the prequel to The Lion King will have new storylines involving familiar characters. When handed the script for Mufasa: The Lion King, Jenkins says he initially thought, “I thought I understood everything about Mufasa.” You think Mufasa became the most powerful ruler in the Pride Lands just because he is the king. And I felt the studio and the writer, Jeff Nathanson, did a fantastic job of really digging into the question of what makes individuals great.
Jenkin’s aim for the new movie, which will include photo-realistic CG technology, is to depict the origin stories of the “tonne of famous characters” returning to the movie from The Lion King. The same people keep popping up… Many of [them] are taking us on a trip through time. We’re not only talking about the current but also the past, to explain who these people were. Disney announced the new film’s cast at D23, and it has many familiar faces from both the animated 1994 version and the live-action 2019 The Lion King. While James Earl Jones provided the voice of Mufasa in both the 1994 remake and the original 1994 film, the younger Mufasa will be played by Aaron Pierre in the upcoming prequel. Mandrill Rafiki (John Kani), meerkat Timon (Billy Eichner), warthog Pumbaa (Seth Rogan), and villain Taka are the other “familiar faces” Jenkins mentioned (who later becomes known as Scar, and who will be voiced by Kelvin Harrison Jr.). Jenkins confirmed the film’s inclusion of musical portions in the same interview.
You can count on a musical extravaganza. Excellent musical numbers, in his opinion. EW posted a clip online in which Jenkins’s hint was followed by a few bars from the iconic song “Hakuna Matata,” which was composed by Jimmy Cliff and Lebo M. for the animated feature of the same name. Hans Zimmer, who composed the music for the live-action adaptation, will be joining Nicholas Britell and Pharrell in scoring the prequel, it was announced during Disney’s Investor Day last year. The 2024 film Mufasa: The Lion King will explore the time period before the events of The Lion King. We’ll see Mufasa’s past via Rafiki, Timon, and Pumbaa’s eyes in the upcoming film’s flashback sequences.
In The Lion King (2019), Simba, a young lion cub, has adventures just like in the 1994 animated blockbuster (voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the original, and by Donald Glover and JD McCrary in the remake). Simba abandons Pride Rock after being convinced that he is responsible for his father’s death, only to return years later to reclaim the throne from his evil uncle Scar. On July 5, 2024, theatregoers may see the first screening of Mufasa: The Lion King.