“I think you'll see a ton of familiar faces. It is a prequel, but again, it's a prequel in the sense that these are all the same characters, but we're telling you how they came to be who they are. So we're literally going backward. We're going back in time with many of these characters. We're in the present, as well, but we're also going back to tell who these characters were.”

Details released so far regarding Mufasa: The Lion King have revealed that the movie will detail how a young, orphaned Mufasa, voiced by Old star Aaron Pierre, found himself in the Pride Lands following a flood. The sequel will also feature a younger version of Scar, voiced by Elvis and The Trial of the Chicago 7 actor Kelvin Harrison Jr., with many theorizing that Mufasa: The Lion King would jump between the past and the present. Theories that have evidently turned out to be correct.

Seth Rogen, Billy Eichner, and John Kani are now confirmed to be reprising their roles as Pumbaa, Timon, and Rafiki, respectively.

Legendary composer Hans Zimmer will provide the score for Mufasa: The Lion King alongside the multi-talented Pharrell Williams and Moonlight composer Nicholas Britell, and Barry Jenkins has teased some “wonderful musical numbers.”

    "Please expect musical numbers. Really wonderful musical numbers, I'd say."

Director Barry Jenkins Has Praised the Mufasa: The Lion King Script

Known for the likes of the Oscar winning Moonlight and the equally acclaimed If Beale Street Could Talk, directing Mufasa: The Lion King seems like a real change of pace for filmmaker Barry Jenkins. The director recently explained why he took on the major Disney project, first revealing his love for the animated original. "Like you, I remember when The Lion King came out. I had two nephews, and so I used to watch it with them,” he said. “Lion King was the "Baby Shark" of my time. I'd seen it literally hundreds of times and I had this connection to it, and yet I was skeptical because, who am I to make a Lion King movie? Not a {Lion King sequel! A Lion King movie."

Jenkins continued, praising the script for Mufasa: The Lion King and even wondering himself whether he was the right person for the job. "I read the script and about 40 pages in I turned to Lulu [Wang] and I said, "Holy sh*t, this is good." And as I kept reading, I got further away from the side of my brain that said, "Oh, a filmmaker like you doesn't make a film like this," and allowed myself to get to the place where these characters, this story, is amazing,” he explained. “What really pushed me across the line was James, my DP, said, "You know what? There's something really interesting in this mode of filmmaking that we haven't done and that not many people have done." That was when I went back to the powers that be and said, "I would love to do this, but I've got to be able to do what I do. And they said yes!"