Barry Jenkins reveals he almost turned down 'Mufasa: The Lion King'

Barry Jenkins isn't eager to use the computer-generated imagery from his next film, Mufasa: The Lion King.

A sequel to 2019's The Lion King, a "live-action" reimagining of Disney Animation's 1994 film of the same name, Mufasa: The Lion King is scheduled for release on December 20. 

Mufasa, like its predecessor, is fully computer-generated imagery (CGI) and uses photorealistic animation to make the safari characters come to life.

“When I took this job, the idea was ‘What does Barry Jenkins know about visual effects? Why the hell would he do this movie?’” Jenkins recalled in an interview with Vulture. He also knew people would ask, “Why would he be making The Lion King?”

“I think part of that I found very invigorating,” Jenkins continued.

“People make these things, you know, with computers. So anybody should be able to do this. Anybody, right? There’s nothing physically that says I am incapable of doing this.”

He also said that he took the position as "work for hire," in part because he wanted to guarantee consistent employment in Los Angeles, where he and his wife, filmmaker Lulu Wang, of The Farewell, reside, for three years.

“I needed to slow … the f**k … down,” Jenkins said, noting he and his wife were often whisked to different cities for their various jobs.

This week, Jenkins revealed that he nearly turned down the assignment.

When Disney first sent him the script, “My thought was, Oh, I’ll just give this a few days and I’ll call my agent and tell them I’ve read it and I’m not going to do this project,” he said.

After that, he and Wang went on vacation, and he completely forgot about it. When he returned, he remembered: “OK, shit, that’s right! I have to call my agents tomorrow and remind them that I’m not going to do this project.” Then, his wife asked him: “Are you afraid to read it?”

He promised himself that he would read five pages of the script, but he read fifty. "This is good, holy sh*t," he remembered, turning to face Lulu.

However, it was more challenging to bring the script to life digitally. The CGI film used an empty soundstage and didn't need any sets or costumes.

“It is not my thing,” Jenkins said of the process. “It is not my thing. I want to work the other way again, where I want to physically get everything there. I always believe that what is here is enough, and let me just figure out what is the chemistry to make alchemy? How can these people, this light, this environment, come together to create an image that is moving, that is beautiful, that creates a text that is deep enough, dense enough, rich enough to speak to someone?”

Mufasa: The Lion King hits theaters Dec. 20.