'Mufasa: The Lion King' Pounces On Disney+ Date

We know you just can’t wait to be streaming this one

Everybody look left. Everybody look right. Tell me it’s you who will be watching Mufasa: The Lion King when it finds its place on Disney+ standing in the spotlight. It has been announced that the follow-up to the 2019 remake of The Lion King will arrive on the streamer on March 26.

As Deadline noted, the December 20-opening film will have only spent 96 days in theaters. Disney’s other 2024 tentpoles have lasted 100+ days, but never more than 3 weeks beyond where Mufasa landed. So exhibitors are more than happy with its stay. Its most direct box office competitor, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, took only 60 days to reach Paramount+, making the wait for Mufasa 36 days, or five weeks and a day longer. Despite a rough domestic opening weekend, and didn’t match the $1.657 billion performance of its predecessor, it still had a global box office of $713.3 million heading into this weekend, on a $251.2 million domestic and $462 international split and quite the overall back-and-forth battle with Sonic the Hedgehog 3, where it ultimately won close domestically by about $15 million and a much stronger global showing by about $225 million total.

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Mufasa: The Lion King takes place as Rafiki (voiced by John Kani), Timon (Billy Eichner), Pumbaa (Seth Rogen), and Simba and Nala’s daughter Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter) await the birth of her little brother, and so the wise mandrill relays the legend of how her grandfather Mufasa (Aaron Pierre, with Braelyn and Brielle Rankins as a cub) became king of the Pride Lands, and how the bond with his brother Scar took its tragic turn. Turns out, Mufasa was an orphaned cub, lost and alone until he meets a sympathetic lion named Taka (Kelvin Harrison Jr., with Theo Somolu as a cub), the heir to a royal bloodline. The journey for their destiny tests their bonds “as they work together to evade a threatening and deadly foe”, Kiros, the leader of the white lion Outsiders voiced by Mads Mikkelsen.

Directed by Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk director Barry Jenkins, Mufasa’s cast also features Kagiso Lediga as younger Rafiki, Thandiwe Newton as Eshe and Lennie James as Obasi, Taka’s parents and thus Mufasa’s adoptive parents, Anika Noni Rose and Keith David as Afia and Masego, Mufasa’s biological parents, and Donald Glover and Beyoncé returning as Simba and Nala in dramatically reduced roles. The film’s songs were written or co-written by Lin-Manuel Miranda including “Milele”, “We Go Together”, “I Always Wanted a Brother”, “Bye Bye”, “Tell Me It’s You” and “Brother Betrayed”. It joins The Lion King at the Hollywood Bowl concert as new franchise material added to the streamer this year.

“Beyoncé's the queen. I love her so much,” Harrison, said of the singer. "I feel like that's very well known — even Beyoncé probably knows at this point how much I love her. It's very cool to be able to brag and say that she's my costar." Jenkins, says working on Mufasa "made me feel like a kid again, if I'm being honest.” He also ribbed at his reputation as a "very serious director, serious filmmaker" and said, “There are moments where we're on the stage and we have all these animators and spandex and kind of running around as lions and it felt like we really were just playing.”

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Source: Deadline, People