Pride rock isn’t a very proud place today. The new trailer for Disney’s major holiday blockbuster effort landed on YouTube — and it landed with a thud. Mufasa is off to a very rocky start as dislikes for the trailer have nearly surpassed the number of people who decided to click the like button. For an animated film based on a beloved franchise, and considering the astronomical budget likely to make photorealistic CGI lions, this is a terribly worrying sign for Disney.
One person you can’t pen blame on, though? Jon Favreau. He’s not associated with this project in any way despite having been the director of the original CGI Lion King that released to tremendous Chinese box office success. This time, the sequel / prequel is being directed by someone Disney calls “award winning”… but in reality doesn’t have quite the same pedigree. Barry Jenkins, known for True Detective on HBO Max (and little else), is directing Mufasa. Add to the issues that James Earl Jones does not return to play Mufasa and you have all the setup you need for a colossal crash on Disney’s best-made plans.
A screen capture of Disney’s Mufasa trailer having more dislikes than likes on YouTube.
Pop culture analyst and pundit, Yellow Flash, claimed the reason for the backlash seems to have been an audience reaction that assessed the movie as a lazy retcon. Some of the changes presented in the trailer appear to include having Mufasa not be born into royalty as was the lineage presented in the original animated movie. Having Mufasa be a non-royal who works his way into a monarchy is par the course for modern Disney, although one might suspect that there will be a non-meritorious way in which he does so.
Based on the prior movie’s budget, Mufasa is likely to have at least a $250 million production budget, but all bets are on a cost of beyond $300 million given the inflationary period we live in. That’s not including marketing, advertisements or any other spends. All-in-all, this is likely a film greenlit based on the huge success of Favreau (especially in China) which will now need a billion dollars in box office revenue to justify its existence. Up until the trailer reaction, that might have been something we all assumed would occur. Now… the future is not quite so certain for Disney. And yet another box office blunder with gonzo potential losses is on the table again.
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