Kelvin Harrison Jr. & Aaron Pierre To Lead Voice Cast Of Barry Jenkins’ The Lion King Prequel
Deadline is reporting that Kelvin Harrison Jr. and The Underground Railroad star Aaron Pierre are set to lead voice cast of The Lion King prequel that Oscar winner Barry Jenkins is directing.
Production is underway on the anticipated feature, which will explore the mythology of the iconic characters, including Mufasa’s origin story.
Pierre — who recently teamed up with Jenkins on Amazon series The Underground Railroad — will play Mufasa while Harrison Jr. is playing Taka, aka Scar. Additional casting is in process with plenty of big names likely.
The untitled prequel (which Disney describes as live-action) will continue with the photorealistic animation technology that director Jon Favreau used in the blockbuster 2019 update of the beloved franchise. Jeff Nathanson, who scripted the last instalment, is back in the fold.
Disney revealed that music will be coming from Hans Zimmer (who scored the original and 2019 version), Pharrell, and Succession’s Nicholas Britell.
Jenkins’ PASTEL partners Adele Romanski and Mark Ceryak are producing with Disney.
Harrison Jr. is best known for movies Waves, Luce, It Comes At Night and Monsters And Men. The rising actor will next be seen starring in Joe Wright’s Cyrano and as B.B.King in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic.
Pierre was most recently seen in M. Night Shyamalan’s Old and as Caesar in all ten episodes of The Underground Railroad. Previous credits include Syfy’s Krypton and Amazon series Britannia.
Jenkins won the Oscar for scripting the Best Picture winner Moonlight.