Barry Jenkins Announces Title Of The Lion King Prequel, Says ‘It’s A Story About Mufasa’s Rise to Royalty’

It’s time to rejoice for Lion King fans, as the movie franchise is set to get back on the screens. Filmmaker Barry Jenkins has officially announced, Mufasa: The Lion King’ a new prequel to the 2019 Lion King film, at D23.

As reported by Variety, the movie has been originally announced as a sequel to the 2019 film Mufasa. It tells the origin story of the iconic Disney father, exploring his childhood growing up with his brother Scar.  The film will feature the voice of Aaron Pierre and Kelvin Harrison Jr. as younger versions of the characters, filling in for James Earl Jones as Mufasa, who voiced Mufasa in both 1994 original and the 2019 CGI remake, and Jeremy Irons and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the villainous Scar.

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At the D23 expo, during the announcement of the title, an exclusive preview footage was also showcased. It started with Rafiki (John Kani) telling the story of Mufasa to young cubs, revealing that the lion was actually an orphaned cub who had to navigate the world alone until he rose to become the king of Pride Rock.

Talking about the character, Jenkins shared, “Mufasa was actually an orphan who had to navigate the world alone himself. And, in telling the story, we get to experience the real journey of how Mufasa found his place in the circle of life.”

The filmmaker also revealed that the audience will get to witness the younger versions of characters Timon, Pumbaa and Rafiki in the movie. The short teaser that began with Rafiki’s (John Kani) narration, also had Timon aka Billy Eichner joking around, “Wait wait wait, am I not in this story? I don’t feel seen.”

During the course of the event, Jenkins was asked why he planned to tell the story of Mufasa. He replied, “I had to make this movie because when I was 14, I was helping raise two nephews. And there was a VHS tape that we watched maybe 95 times in the span of 20 days. So I really knew his character. I loved him. Then, as I was reading this wonderful script, I was thinking about Mufasa and why he was great and how people become great. I thought this is a really beautiful story to tell.”

As fans would know, the classic Walt Disney Studio film The Lion King was originally released in 1994 and followed the theme of good winning over evil. In 2019, it was remade by the studio and it once again gained popularity among the audience and became a box office hit.