Mufasa: The Lion King (Live-Action)

[robster16]

Had zero interest in the live action remake and have zero interest in this either…

[D82]

Videos from the D23 presentation, including Lebo M's performance of "Circle of Life:"

https://x.com/grailscovent/status/1822134810552492270
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W-0jXnzUGI


Also, the last time we got a Mufasa poster and it looks like now it's a Skar/Taka one.


Source: https://x.com/DisneyStudios/status/1822136510990151986


The film looks kind of interesting to me, but I'm still not a fan of the animation.

[Farerb]

The song is the only thing from the presentation that hasn't leaked.

[Josh123]

Here is the leaked song "I've always wanted a brother" :
https://x.com/i/status/1822188020096794690

[Farerb]

Thank you

[UmbrellaFish]

Here is the leaked song "I've always wanted a brother" :
https://x.com/i/status/1822188020096794690

Yes, thank you!

I thought that song was just okay.

[PatrickvD]

I mean, the music in this was always going to suck compared to the original. The shoes are simply too big to fill.

[UmbrellaFish]

Ahh, Lin-Manuel Miranda is my favorite modern musical theatre composer so I was excited to hear what he had planned.

[DisneyFan09]

Well, to give my thoughts about the trailer: I liked it, despite how Timon`s comment at the beginning was a little too meta (and belonged to something like The Lion King 1 1/2). The animation was great and colorful and the lions had more expressions to their faces. The parts of the leaves was derivative and similar to Pocahontas, Frozen II and Simba`s Pride. As for Taka, it would`ve been tempting if this movie is going to make him sympathetic, as this teaser certainly made him do that. I liked the part with the image in the sky and the white lions. As for the song, it was fun and catchy enough, but perhaps a little too jolly.

[Sotiris]

While the new trailer is better than the teaser, I still can't muster much excitement for it. I'm not on board with them messing with the lore; making Mufasa an orphan and not of royal blood, making Scar a good guy, justifying Scar's resentment towards Mufasa etc. It seems they're trying to replicate the sibling dynamic between Moses and Ramses from The Prince of Egypt, but I highly doubt they'll be able to pull it off. The story itself feels like a generic, episodic adventure while the character designs and animation look just as uncanny as the 2019 one. The voice acting is fine, with the exception of young Scar's accent which feels out of place. The less said about the new music, the better.

[D82]

Lebo M also performed a new song from the film titled "Ngomso" at D23. Here are also an interview with the cast and new stills.

Here is the leaked song "I've always wanted a brother" :
https://x.com/i/status/1822188020096794690

It doesn't sound bad to me. I'm curious to hear the rest of the songs.

It seems they're trying to replicate the sibling dynamic between Moses and Ramses from The Prince of Egypt, but I highly doubt they'll be able to pull it off.

Oh, I think you're right! It makes sense since the first one was also partially inspired by the story of Moses.

[blackcauldron85]

This doesn't look bad. I don't watch much of the remakes; I saw Pete's Dragon because it's really not a remake, and I saw The Jungle Book on my honeymoon for something to do and it was ok. But I tried watching Aladdin 3 times and can't get through it. I saw some of B&tB and just complained.

All that to say, I think TLK (having not seen it) is the worst as far as just essentially remaking a hand-drawn film into CGI. Saying that though, I'm maybe partly interested in this. The trailer definitely makes me wonder what happened between Scar and Mufasa...but also:

I'm not on board with them messing with the lore; making Mufasa an orphan and not of royal blood, making Scar a good guy, justifying Scar's resentment towards Mufasa etc.

I agree with this so much.

Even the "Brother" song: it's catchy and I like it a little more with each listen. I don't like how they say "broth-ah" for some reason (and I'm from Massachusetts, I can't be judging dropping an "R" ). I'm just torn!

[D82]

New interviews with the cast and creative team. In the first one, Anika Noni Rose talks a bit about her song in the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8YaeClmq7s
https://youtu.be/FPjhYu6E-nc?t=37

[Sotiris]

Source: https://x.com/Borys_Kit/status/1822143066607620163

[D23ExpoVisitor25]

One fan is not representative of the entire general public, especially when the new trailer from D23 is being better received on YouTube (80% thumbs up) compared to the teaser trailer (34% thumbs down).

So, I don’t feel these doomsdaying tweets are a representation of what will happen.

[Sotiris]

Shah Rukh Khan & Sons To Voice Hindi Version Of ‘Mufasa: The Lion King’
https://deadline.com/2024/08/shah-rukh- ... 236034468/

The Cast and Creators of 'Mufasa: The Lion King' on Making the Movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOo48yHMKcs

[D82]

In a new interview from D23, Anika Noni Rose reveals her song in the film is titled "Milele" and tells what it is about.

Here are some more interviews:

The Cast of Mufasa: The Lion King's Reactions to Reading the Script
Mufasa director says Blue Ivy doesn't sing in the movie: 'She is a thespian!' (exclusive)
"Mufasa: The Lion King" stars Aaron Pierre, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Seth Rogen & Billy Eichner interview

[PatchofBlue]

For Him, a ‘Lion King’ Prequel Is the ‘Most Different Thing I Could Do’
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/07/movi ... -king.html

Why did you want to make this film?

I found the story incredibly moving. There’s this character who we know of as inherently great or inherently royal, and we get to really go in and explore how this person came to be. We’re also looking at what makes some people good and others evil, and how people aren’t fundamentally one or the other.

Why do you think studios are coming to indie filmmakers to do these big-budget pictures?

Maybe they feel like the spectacle is not enough, and they wish that their films could be more emotional, or wish the drama felt more real, or that audiences cared about the characters in a more intense way. So maybe it’s smart to go get people like Chloé and Lee Isaac, who’ve proven they can do those things, and have them learn the skills to do this other thing, because maybe the studios feel it’s more difficult to do one than the other. But I don’t know. I’m not the studio.

[D82]

^Interesting article. Here's another interview with the director from Empire Magazine. It sounds from both articles like they wanted to have a sad scene that rivalled Mufasa's death from the original.

The cub who would be king
HOW BARRY JENKINS BREATHED NEW LIFE INTO AN ICONIC DISNEY CHARACTER IN MUFASA: THE LION KING
WORDS BEN TRAVIS

Barry Jenkins has never before made a movie that kids could watch. Whether it's the Oscar-winning Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk or his streaming series adaptation of The Underground Railroad, the filmmaker has always told adult-focused stories. Which is why he wanted to do the opposite for his next project: a prequel to Disney's 2019 photoreal- animated reimagining of The Lion King, telling the origin story of Pride Rock's GOAT. Make way for Mufasa: The Lion King.

"This was an opportunity to experience so many things with an audience that isn't typically engaged with my work - which is young people," Jenkins tells Empire. "Just about everyone on the planet loves The Lion King." Including members of Jenkins' own family. "I remember raising my nephews and watching the 1994 [film] with them, and you come to that scene when Simba is walking up to Mufasa's prone body. I understood that my nephews were experiencing grief for the first time in a really honest way," he recalls. "[They] were so well taken care of by that film - the things they experienced, those new emotions. Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could take up the task of doing that same thing for kids today?"

Just as The Lion King told the story of Simba's ascent, Mufasa will rewind for the rise of James Earl Jones' legendary lion - here voiced by Aaron Pierre. For Jenkins, the material is just as thematically rich as his indie fare. "The script told the story of two families," he explains. "The family that's created between the characters we come to know as Scar [Kelvin Harrison Jr's Taka] and Mufasa, and the other family that Mufasa builds and grows over the course of the film. Those two things were hyper-related to the past work I've done - especially these two guys trying to negotiate with one another and figure out the true state of their friendship, their brotherhood."

As well as moving audiences beyond the "perfect" image of Mufasa from The Lion King ("It's not about demythologising him, or humanising him-it's just showing everything has a beginning," notes Jenkins), depicting the character's evolution from humble cub to mighty monarch held real value. "In building a family, [Mufasa] learns to grow beyond his own barriers, his own personal experiences," Jenkins says. "Through engaging with people, seeing how other people function in situations that might be terrifying to him. Just like all of us, he learns by being within a community, not being outside of it."

Expect, too, to see Mufasa and Scar before they became enemies - their partnership illuminated by Lin-Manuel Miranda's freshly penned songs. "One particular two-hander, I Always Wanted A Brother', is really fantastic," Jenkins
enthuses. "It was the first song that Lin wrote, and it just captures everything the movie is about. A scene in the film ended with that [as a] line, and Lin took it and created this. As a musical should, the song took the story into this other stratosphere for three minutes. And by the end of that song, you understand something fundamentally about our two brothers, that maybe you couldn't understand otherwise."

The question is, will Mufasa hit young audiences with a scene as formatively emotional as the original film's remarkably patient death-of-Mufasa? "Maybe you couldn't do that today," says Jenkins, reflecting on the 1994 version's stillness. "Or maybe you can. Maybe you can! We shall see..." Whatever your age, bring a lion's share of tissues.

And here are a couple of excerpts from an interview with Lebo M in which he also talks about the movie:

“The music in ‘Mufasa: The Lion King’ is different and very special, the first thing I wrote became the very beginning of the movie, which is new for me,” said Lebo M.

“For the first time in the history of ‘The Lion King’ my new song, ‘Ingoma’, which will replace ‘Nants' Ingonyama’, will start the film. So it’s a brand new beginning of ‘The Lion King’.

“After writing the first song, I started working with American songwriter and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda. He was brought in to replace Elton John and Tim Rice. I’m currently writing the score, which I’m going back and forth to London for, so it’s still a very exciting process,” said Lebo M.

Three decades later, when he was the only composer asked to return to write music for the prequel, Lebo M said he felt “incredibly special”.

“Seeing what ‘The Lion King’ has been for 30 years, I honestly felt like, ‘Wow this is big’. I’ve been working on ‘Mufasa’ for almost two years now and again I approached it as a project but this one is very special because it’s a prequel, so it doesn’t feel like I’m doing the project I’ve been doing for 30 years.

“The excitement of it now is going back to what life was like for Scar and Mufasa as babies.”

Source: https://www.iol.co.za/sunday-tribune/en ... b713b93b85

[D23ExpoVisitor25]

Mufasa: The Lion King officially rated PG, implying the final cut of the film is locked: https://www.filmratings.com/Content/Dow ... lletin.pdf