Barry Jenkins on why he made ‘Mufasa’ and how it changed him as a filmmaker

AP Film Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Over the four years he’s spent working on “Mufasa: The Lion King,” Barry Jenkins estimates that he’s been asked why he wanted to make it at least 400 times. The question of why Jenkins, the filmmaker of “Moonlight” and “If Beale Street Could Talk” and “The Underground Railroad,” would want to jump into the big-budget, photorealistic animated Disney world of lions and tigers has bedeviled much of a film world that reveres him. Countless other directors had made leaps into CGI-heavy blockbuster-making before. But Jenkins’ decision was uniquely analyzed – perhaps because there’s no more heralded, or trusted, filmmaker today under the age of 50 than Jenkins. In an interview, Jenkins says making “Mufasa” was something “I could not deny.”