Is Mufasa the Sequel to The Lion King? Find Out Now!

In September 2019, just a few months following the release of Jon Favreau’s photorealistic version of The Lion King, Disney announced that director Barry Jenkins would helm a prequel centered on Mufasa. The CGI remake had garnered an impressive $1.65 billion at the global box office.

The Barry Jenkins Surprise

Having triumphed at the 2017 Oscars with three awards for “Moonlight,” including Best Picture, and helping Regina King win Best Supporting Actress for his drama “If Beale Street Could Talk,” Barry Jenkins surprised many by agreeing to direct a blockbuster for Disney.

For the 45-year-old filmmaker, it was a clear choice. He stated in a press release shared by the Hollywood Reporter: “While helping my sister raise two young boys in the ’90s, I grew up alongside these characters. Having the opportunity to work with Disney to extend this beautiful story of friendship, love, and legacy, while continuing my work chronicling the lives and souls from the African diaspora, is a dream come true.”

I grew up alongside these characters.

Barry Jenkins later told Variety: “I read the script and about 40 pages in, I turned to Lulu [Wang, his partner and also a director] and said, ‘This is great.’ As I continued reading, I moved away from that voice in my head that said, ‘A filmmaker like you wouldn’t do a movie like this,’ and allowed myself to immerse in the idea that these characters, this story, are incredible.”

A Prequel to The Lion King

In the film, Rafiki tells Simba and Nala’s daughter, Kiara, the legend of Mufasa. He is assisted by Timon and Pumbaa. Told through flashbacks, Mufasa’s story is that of an orphaned lion cub, alone and forlorn, who meets the friendly Taka, heir to a royal lineage. This chance encounter marks the beginning of a journey filled with adventures for the small group of “misfits” who have joined them, now in search of their destiny. Their bonds of friendship are tested as they must team up to escape a deadly and menacing enemy.

Mufasa, father of the hero from the 1994 animated film by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, quickly became an iconic Disney character. His tragic, almost Shakespearean fate has brought tears to a generation of children. The action in Mufasa takes place years before The Lion King, finally revealing why Scar harbored such hatred for Mufasa. It was he who was destined to be king as the sole heir of royal blood, Mufasa having been adopted as a cub.

Themes Dear to Barry Jenkins

At D23 in 2022, AlloCiné had the opportunity to speak with Barry Jenkins, who explained: “It’s different from The Lion King, but the same energy is there. Mufasa tells how Simba’s father became king. We tell his story, from his childhood to the birth of his son. In the original film, Mufasa represents greatness. We admire his royalty, his leadership. We think he has all this because he was born to it…

But in this prequel, we explore how his friends and family made him who he is. We discover his journey. For me, Mufasa means a lot, and I think it’s a film that children and their parents, who grew up with the Disney classic, will love to see.”

The feature film tackles themes dear to Barry Jenkins and already explored in his previous works, particularly Moonlight: the quest for identity, coming of age, heritage, the importance of family relationships, and loyalty.

“Mufasa wasn’t born with privileges,” the director emphasizes in the press kit. “He had a family, but he lost it. Then self-belief, destiny, and chance came into play and gave him a new clan with whom he could learn and build himself. Nothing was given to him: he earned everything through his courage and resilience.”

A Challenging but Exhausting Task

While the themes of the feature film captivated the filmmaker, he admits to Vulture that the 147-day shoot with no physical sets and an all-digital staging was somewhat taxing.

“I found the challenge stimulating at first. Today, people do a lot of things just by computer. I figured anyone should be able to do it. There’s nothing physical saying I can’t do it too. But it’s not my cup of tea,” he reflects.

“I realize it’s not for me. I’d like to work in the opposite way, meaning I want everything to be physically on set. I love wondering what the right recipe is to create chemistry on a set. How these people, this light, this environment can come together to make a shot beautiful and moving. How to create a script deep enough, dense enough, rich enough to speak to the audience…”

Mufasa: The Lion King was created using the same technology employed for The Lion King by Jon Favreau. Namely, a combination of photorealistic CGI and virtual reality to recreate immersive environments and realistic characters.

Barry Jenkins, the director of Mufasa, continued this approach, allowing the production team to “film” scenes in a virtual space as if they were using a real camera. No scenes were shot in real settings, which is one of the filmmaker’s regrets. However, the result is stunning as early viewers find the film “visually spectacular.”

Mufasa: The Lion King is available in theaters for audiences starting from age 8.