Somehow, in between launching Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King with red carpet hullabaloo in Los Angeles and in London, Barry Jenkins found time to marry his longtime filmmaking partner Lulu Wang.
The Oscar-winning director introduced his Mufasa voice cast at the Cineworld theater complex in the West End and apologized for running on empty, having had “about two hours” sleep in 48 hours. Almost as an aside, he announced, ”Oh, yeah I got married” on Saturday.
The audience cheered as he led his company of actors off stage and repeated the news in a neighboring auditorium.
Jenkins certainly had a spring in his step when he walked the red carpet, but he gave no hint that nuptials had taken place over the weekend.
Mufasa is a prequel to 1994’s much-loved animated film The Lion King and explores what caused the rift between Mufasa and Scar. In the new movie, Scar is introduced as a lion cub named Taka, voiced by Kelvin Harrison Jr. Aaron Pierre provides the voice of Young Mufasa.
In the first Lion King picture, the mighty Mufasa had the instantly recognizable rich tones of the late James Earl Jones, to whom the film is dedicated.
RELATED: Hollywood Remembers James Earl Jones: “There Will Never Be Another Combination Of His Graces”
Jenkins explained to Deadline that “in our film, Mufasa and Taka aren’t blood relatives. … They are raised in the same family, but one of them gets one brand of parenting and the other gets the other brand of parenting.
‘Mufasa: The Lion King’
Walt Disney Studios
Taka comes from a royal bloodline. His father, Obasi, the leader of his pride, voiced by Lennie James, spoils the cub. “He’s been told by his father that things belong to him and not that he must earn things through experience or through hard work, or any work at all,” Jenkins said.
Meanwhile, young Mufasa goes hunting with the lioness Eshe, who is Obasi’s mate and Taka’s mother.
She teaches her adopted son how to use his senses to sniff out food and how, when need be, to defend himself and others. In a sense, Mufasa’s the complete antithesis of idle Taka.
RELATED: ‘Mufasa: The Lion King’ Hopes To Roar $66M+ Opening Or More – Box Office Early Look
“Eshe is teaching Mufasa how to, more or less, be one with all the elements of all the creatures,” Jenkins explained. “And Obasi is teaching Taka how to use decent as a tool to govern and subjugate all the other animals.”
That creates a scenario, Jenkins said, where Mufasa evolves into the best version of themselves, while Taka “turns, unfortunately, into the worst version of themselves.”
Jenkins noted that when he initially read Jeff Nathanson’s screenplay, the thing that stuck out to him was that while it’s the same characters “it’s 2024, and it’s a much more complicated world than 1994 was,“ meaning that the film would need to meet a new level “of complication and audience sophistication.”
RELATED: ‘Mufasa: The Lion King’ Director Barry Jenkins Responds To Criticism Over Disney Prequel
The entire film was workshopped with a troupe of actors who would not be further involved with the project. “We did that to get the surfboard artists going, and then once we cast the actual principal cast, we re-recorded, and I redirected the entire film with the principal cast” voicing the characters.
The film opens with a flood that wouldn’t be out of place in a summer action movie.
Originally, Jenkins said, the flood “was just like one line in the script, but he wanted to expand it to put key characters in great peril.”
With water becoming a major feature, Jenkins didn’t realize how many similarities there would end up being between Mufasa and his award-winning 2016 film Moonlight.
RELATED: The Highest-Grossing Animated Films Of All Time At The Box Office: Photo Gallery
“Water is a feature in both films, and it’s really instrumental to the journey that the protagonist goes on,” said Jenkins. He went on to explain how he and production designer Mark Friedberg — they worked together on 2021 TV drama The Underground Railroad — tried to figure out how water could become a “thematic, symbolic element,” and a source of danger to the main characters.
Jenkins told us that when Disney approached him about directing Mufasa, he thought they’d tapped the wrong man. ”I’m the indie drama guy,” he told them.
And they told him, “‘Yes, we know and we need the emotion to be so rich in this film in order for it to work.’ So they let me lean in, and I leaned all the way.”
One addition to his own household helped him understand how an animal might react in any given situation.
Jenkins smiled and said: ”I got a dog for the first time.” The mutt’s arrival coincided with him sitting down and reading the script for the first time.
Barry Jenkins (Photo by Matt Morris)
The dog is a golden doodle by the name of Chauncey, named with the character Peter Sellers played in Hal Ashby’s 1979 classic Being There in mind.
“And my dog looks like a couple of these characters in this film. And just watching him grow up literally on the same clock as we made this film,” he said. “And so I’ve watched him grow, and you can see there’s a life in there. There are emotions in there.”
His dog helped him understand that animals — even lions — have a heart, they have emotions.
He said that when he looks at Chauncey, “you can see that there’s a lot happening in there. He’s very moody, very intense. I’m a Scorpio. I believe he’s got Scorpio energy, I like to say.”
RELATED: 2024-25 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Oscars, Spirits, Grammys, Tonys, Guilds & More
Fascinating that a canine should have a major influence on the emotional center of a major movie about lions.
Jenkins collaborated closely with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who penned the film’s songs.
The songwriter wasn’t available to the production until they were 18 months in, due to him being busy directing the film tick, tick… Boom! and writing songs for Disney’s Encanto.
Dave Metzger composed the Mufasa score and worked with South African musician Lebo M, who was instrumental in creating the South African choral sound for “Circle of Life” in The Lion King. For Mufasa, he worked with the South African Gospel Choir.
“They would sing in Swahili for the most part, a little bit in Zulu, but in Swahili, almost like a Greek chorus, sort of underscoring Mufasa’s journey,” Jenkins said.
RELATED: The 2025 Oscars: Everything We Know So Far About The Nominations, Ceremony, Date & Host
One number sung by Mufasa and Taka has a melody that’s used as a leitmotif throughout the film.
It’s a gripping sound, and grips you just as the movie’s story does.
Jenkins described the animated process for Mufasa as “live-action animation.”
The film certainly has plenty of action what with thrilling moments involving water and a pride of albino lions led by the ferocious Kiros, voiced by self-confessed “lion lover” Mads Mikkelsen.
Disney will release the action-packed movie in U.S. theaters on December 20.