Blue Ivy joins mom Beyoncé in ‘Mufasa: The Lion King’

The pride of the Knowles-Carter empire is now the pride of Pride Rock.

Blue Ivy Carter joins her mom, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter of Renaissance and Cowboy Carter fame, in the Lion King prequel Mufasa, Disney confirmed Monday with the release of the film’s first trailer — which is similar to the footage screened in Las Vegas for CinemaCon earlier in April. Blue Ivy will voice the role of Kiara, the daughter of King Simba and Queen Nala, to be voiced again by Donald Glover and Beyoncé after the 2019 movie.

Mufasa: The Lion King is told through flashbacks and framed around a story Rafiki (John Kani), Timon (Billy Eichner), and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) tell a young lion cub about one of the Pride Lands’ greatest kings.

“A buddy of mine, Matthew Cherry, made the short film called Hair Love that Blue Ivy did the audio book of. Starting this project and just having that in the ether, I was like, ‘Is it worth a shot? Would Blue Ivy want to do it? Would Beyoncé want to act opposite her daughter? Is it too close to home?'” Mufasa director Barry Jenkins tells Entertainment Weekly. “But once we put the question to them, they both responded with enthusiasm.”

In perhaps a coincidental turn, Blue Ivy appeared on stage during Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour as a featured dancer during performances of the song “My Power,” which was first introduced on the singer’s The Lion King-inspired visual album The Gift in 2019. Were the mother-daughter duo secretly signaling to the public that they would re-team for Mufasa?

“They are a lot smarter than me, and they have a lot more going on than me, so if they were signaling to people, all good, but it was not my intention. I just thought she would do a wonderful job,” the Moonlight Oscar-winning filmmaker says. However, he admits the Renaissance tour happened after they worked on Mufasa together.

“What’s crazy is we made the film, and then the Renaissance tour happened, and I think Blue really grew up over the course of that tour,” he recalls. “So the Blue Ivy you see in this film, it’s like a time capsule, this very, very, very young stage of her life, and she got to share it with her mom. So, I thought there was some synergy. It could be beautiful.”

Confirmed for the cast are Aaron Pierre as Mufasa; Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Taka (a.k.a. young Scar); Tiffany Boone as Mufasa’s future queen, Sarabi; Kagiso Lediga as young Rafiki; Preston Nyman as Zazu; Mads Mikkelsen as Kiros; Thandiwe Newton as Taka’s mother, Eshe; Lennie James as Taka’s father, Obasi; and Disney’s The Princess and the Frog veterans Anika Noni Rose and Keith David as Mufasa’s parents, Afia and Masego.

Meanwhile, Lin-Manuel Miranda, who’s been composing new tunes for various Disney films like Moana and the live-action Little Mermaid, was announced as the mystery music man behind the new songs coming to Mufasa: The Lion King.

The core story — which Jenkins says is “building on the scaffolding of The Lion King that so many people know, both the 1994 film and the stage musical” — follows Mufasa who’s taken in by Taka and his family. Long before he would be known as Scar, Taka was a young prince with a bright future who embraced Mufasa as his brother. Kiros also plays “a very big prominent part in this film,” Jenkins says, as a formidable lion with big plans for his pride. The filmmaker declines to elaborate. To put it bluntly, he says, “I’m trying not to get fired.”

“What I loved about the script was it went into that place where you can really understand how a person becomes the person that they grow up to be,” Jenkins explains. “Seeing Scar as a cub and being like, ‘Yo, I kind of like that guy,’ it just did something to my brain. The other element of it was, I’ve always been obsessed with why we place people on pedestals, whether it’s kings, presidents, queens, prime ministers, whatever it is.”

In a roundabout way of talking about Mufasa: The Lion King, Jenkins references poet and essayist Ocean Vuong (Time Is a Mother, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous), who previously spoke about the differences in language.

“He’s Vietnamese and was talking about how writing his poetry, writing his long-form fiction in English is interesting because he’ll think of things in both languages, especially when he thinks of his mother,” the director says. “He said that, in his language, ‘mother’ isn’t just this word. You aren’t just a mother. You are ‘mothering.’ In this film, what we uncover is that you’re not just a king, you are a king. You are that thing by living out the principles of it, by really embodying it. Simba had to learn that journey in the OG film, and it’s quite radical the ways in which Mufasa has to chart a similar journey, but with very different circumstances.”

Mufasa: The Lion King will open in theaters this Dec. 20. Watch the trailer above.

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