Kelvin Harrison Jr. & Aaron Pierre Join Barry Jenkins' LION KING Prequel

Production is underway for Disney's new prequel to The Lion King! Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Aaron Pierre will lead the cast of the new film, which will be directed by Moonlight's Barry Jenkins.

Deadline reports that Pierre has signed on to voice the role of Mufasa, whereas Harrison Jr. will voice the role of Taka. The film will follow Mufasa's origin story, further exploring the backgrounds of the film's iconic characters. The untitled prequel will continue with the same animation technology that was used in the 2019 remake of the franchise. Jeff Nathanson, who wrote the last film, is set to pen the new installment.

Disney previously revealed that Hans Zimmer, who scored the original and 2019 version, will return for the new film while Pharrell and Succession's Nicholas Britell will contribute new music.

Kelvin Harris, Jr. was most recently seen in Waves, Luce, It Comes At Night and Monsters And Men. He stars in Joe Wright's upcoming Cyrano and will play B.B.King in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis Presley biopic.

Aaron Pierre recently starred in M. Night Shyamalan's film Old and as Caesar the acclaimed series The Underground Railroad. Other projects include Krypton on SYFY and Amazon's Britannia.