Mufasa: The Lion King Footage Teases A Lion Rags To Lion Riches Story [CinemaCon 2024]
Few movies embody the pre-pandemic moviegoing days quite like "The Lion King," an expensive, fully CGI remake of a hand-drawn animation classic, which made over $1.5 billion in 2019 yet rarely seems to come up in pop culture conversations since its release. Whether you loved, hated, or forgot about the box office behemoth, we think its sequel, "Mufasa: The Lion King," is still worth considering. That's because the follow-up film is directed by Barry Jenkins, the wildly talented filmmaker behind Best Picture winner "Moonlight" and the recent Criterion Collection addition "The Underground Railroad," among other masterpieces.
/Film's own Ryan Scott caught an exclusive glimpse of "Mufasa: The Lion King" today in Las Vegas at CinemaCon, where Hollywood goes each year to show off the latest and greatest movies it has to offer. The "Lion King" prequel, which will reportedly tell a new story about a younger Mufasa and Scar, isn't set to hit theaters until December 2024, but CinemaCon audiences just got an early look at Jenkins' take on some of Disney's most treasured characters. Aaron Pierre and Kelvin Harrison Jr. join the cast this time around, while Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner will reprise their roles as Pumbaa and Timon, respectively.
Will the movie capture the magic of Jenkins' imagination and the '90s classic, or will it be another trip to the uncanny valley via the elephant graveyard? We won't know for sure until it hits theaters, but in the meantime, let's dig into some of the very first footage.
He's just a poor lion boy, from a poor lion family
For those still wondering how in the great circle of life we ended up with auteur and visionary director Barry Jenkins behind the director's chair of a "Mufasa" prequel to Disney's live-action "The Lion King" remake, well, at least the filmmaker himself is well aware of the wonky-looking optics. Introducing the panel at this year's CinemaCon, Jenkins opened with a self-deprecating joke about how the director of the Oscar-winning indie "Moonlight" ended up on such a massive studio blockbuster production like this — "an eight-quadrant tentpole," as he amusingly put it. However strange a career choice this may have been, Jenkins called it "one of the best decisions" of his life and describing the experience as "very personal" to him. Nobody can say the man isn't a great salesman! As for which artists might be behind the many new songs in the movie, Jenkins joked that he's "handcuffed" by Disney and can't spill any names just yet.
And then there was the exclusive footage. It opens on a stunning vista of mountains shrouded in ice and snow, before cutting to Rafiki's familiar-looking tree as the wise mandrill provides the voiceover narration to set up the teaser. "A lion was born without a drop of nobility in his blood," we hear over images of animals on the vast African plains and, finally, the man lion cub of the hour: young Mufasa himself. This segues into a shot of the eventual king gazing up at the clouds, which forms a lion's face much like Simba sees in the original movie years later. By all accounts, the footage mostly gives a sense of the tone and aesthetics of the film as opposed to the story, which hints at the idea of Mufasa being born into nothing to become the king we know he will be. Interesting!
"Mufasa: The Lion King" roars into theaters December 20, 2024.