“The earth will shake,” Rafiki says before the earth does exactly that: Disney’s first trailer for its live-action-animation hybrid Lion King prequel movie – officially titled Mufasa: The Lion King – looks like it’s going to be packed with action of the most epic kind.
But if the trailer makes you excited at the prospect of another Lion King movie, you won’t like how it ends: the release date on screen isn’t until 20 December. (So it’ll likely hit Disney Plus in 2025.)
The movie looks like it’ll be worth waiting for, though. Once again Disney has assembled a spectacular cast that includes Aaron Pierre as Mufasa, John Kani as Rafiki, Beyoncé as Nala and Blue Ivy Carter as Nala’s daughter, Kiara. There’s also Thandiwe Newton, Mads Mikkelsen, Seth Rogen, Billy Eichner and Donald Glover, among many others. And the soundtrack features new songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda – although the iconic theme from the original movie is here too, opening the trailer with goosebump-raising effect.
What is the story in Mufasa: The Lion King?
Here’s Disney: the film “enlists Rafiki to relay the legend of Mufasa to young lion cub Kiara, daughter of Simba and Nala, with Timon and Pumbaa lending their signature schtick. Told in flashbacks, the story introduces Mufasa as an orphaned cub, lost and alone until he meets a sympathetic lion named Taka – the heir to a royal bloodline. The chance meeting sets in motion an expansive journey of an extraordinary group of misfits searching for their destiny – their bonds will be tested as they work together to evade a threatening and deadly foe.” And while Mufasa is the focus, we’ll also get some backstory about his brother Scar, one of the finest of Disney’s many villains.
The film follows in the footsteps of 2019’s Lion King remake with photorealistic CGI rather than traditional animation. Some of the images in the trailer look a bit computer-y to me, but that may be a YouTube thing – although the movie’s production, including its visual effects production, was slowed during the Hollywood strikes so it’s likely still very much a work in progress.
Disney’s ‘live-action’ remakes have proved to be quite divisive, so for example the 2019 Lion King is currently sitting with 52% from the Rotten Tomatoes critics compared to 92% for the 1994 original. Part of that, of course, is that the more recent film is being reviewed through the lens of remaking a movie that’s almost universally adored – but as Brian Eggert of Deep Focus Review pointed out, there are also issues specific to the use of CGI. “With Disney’s new version of The Lion King, the studio’s recent trend of remaking their classic hand-drawn animated films with live actors and photoreal animation has broadened the definition of Uncanny Valley to include animals.”
Photorealism is more lifelike than hand-drawn cels, of course, but that means that when it falls short of perfection our brains notice it in a way that doesn’t happen with more stylized images. In The Lion King, it also mean the creatures were less expressive and individual, but Mufasa looks like it’s taken some good steps to beat that problem based on the trailer.
While you wait, check out our guide to the best Disney Plus movies for more animated hits.