The news was first broken by Deadline, then confirmed by Jenkins himself on his Twitter. He later retweeted a mock trailer for the film that someone had made which set dialogue from Moonlight to footage from the 2019 Lion King. Alongside this tweet, he hinted that his take on the property would be, “Not a sequel. Not a remake. All love…”
This seems to dash the hopes of some Lion King fans who were hoping he was set to do a live-action take on The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride, the 1998 straight-to-VHS sequel inspired by Romeo and Juliet (while the original movie was based on Hamlet) focusing on the daughter of Simba and Nala.
In fact, the Deadline article suggested that Jenkins’ Lion King 2 will take inspiration from The Godfather Part II, with the story split between the continuing adventures of Simba (voiced by Donald Glover) and an origin story for his father Mufasa (James Earl Jones). The article suggests that the new movie will have songs that are “continuation of the tradition of music” from the prior films—which could mean Elton John and/or Beyonce returning to compose some more tracks.
“Helping my sister raise two young boys during the ’90s, I grew up with these characters,” Jenkins said of The Lion King 2 to Deadline. “Having the opportunity to work with Disney on expanding this magnificent tale of friendship, love and legacy while furthering my work chronicling the lives and souls of folk within the African diaspora is a dream come true.”
At the time of writing, an initial draft of the script has been written by Jeff Nathanson, who penned the 2019 Lion King as well as Rush Hour 2 and 3, Catch Me If You Can and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. However, it may be that Jenkins himself may add to the script—after all, he has already won one Oscar for writing Moonlight, and has been nominated for another for Beale Street.
So far, however, the movie does not have a release or shooting date. Jenkins is also currently working on a biopic about noted choreographer Alvin Ailey, which might delay things starting on the Lion King sequel.
