Filmmaker Barry Jenkins has made some astounding progressive leaps in his career. In 2016, after one acclaimed but tiny-budgeted micro-indie, “Medicine For Melancholy,” he won the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 89th annual ceremony for his highly successful and critically acclaimed coming-of-age drama film “Moonlight.” While he’s made one film, “If Beale Street Could Talk”) and one series since (“The Underground Railroad”), Jenkins turned a lot of heads and arguably even shocked some—especially in the indie and arthouse film communities where he started—when it was announced that he would direct Disney’s “Mufasa: The Lion King,” a live-action photorealistic computer-generated imagery prequel to the similarly made 2019 “Lion King” film by Jon Favreau.
Betrayal is hardly the right word for it, but given Jenkins’ arthouse sensibilities, the news surprised and puzzled some fans, critics, and pundits.
While the recently released ‘Mufasa’ trailer for the film certainly won some folks over, there are still quite a few people critical of the project and Jenkins’ decision to direct it. So, Jenkins responded to a few attacks on the project on Twitter.
One user wrote, “Barry, You’re too good and talented for this Iger’s soulless machine,” referring to Disney CEO Bob Iger and the filmmaker defending his movie and artistic choices.
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Responding to these criticisms, Jenkins says, “There is nothing soulless about ‘The Lion King.’ For decades, children have sat in theaters all over the world, experiencing collective grief for the first time, engaging Shakespeare for the first time across aisles in myriad languages. A most potent vessel for communal empathy.”
Obviously, responding to every comment or attack on social media is futile and nearly pointless, but Jenkins’ seemingly compelled to answer—a rare move by most filmmakers of his stature— likely conveys his conviction in both the film and his choice to direct it. The filmmaker seems eager to prove people wrong with the film and recently said at CinemaCon that directing ‘Mufasa’ turned out to “be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”
‘Mufasa’ features a voice cast that consists of Aaron Piere, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Seth Rogen, Billy Eichner, John Kani, Tiffany Boone, Mads Mikkelsen, Donald Glover, Beyonce Knowles-Carter, and Thandiwe Newton to name a few.
Whether or not the film will live up to the original animated film is yet to be seen, but we can only hope that Jenkins’ directorial skills and confidence in the project will be noticeable when the film lands in theatres on December 20, 2024.