Barry Jenkins‘ long-awaited “Mufasa: The Lion King” hits theaters in a couple of weeks, his first foray into digital filmmaking. But if the director has his way, the first time may very well be the last time.
In a new interview with Vulture, Jenkins discussed how a movie like his latest may not be his style. “It’s not my thing,” he told the publication about making a movie in an all-digital format. He stressed the point again: “It is not my thing. I want to work the other way again where I want to physically get everything there.” That sounds like whatever Jenkins makes next, it certainly won’t be like “Mufasa,” which features photorealistic animation and an estimated budget of over $200 million. For sake of comparison, Jenkins’ 2016 breakout “Moonlight” cost just $4 million to make, which won him Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay (and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Mahersala Ali).
In fact, before “Mufasa,” all of Jenkins’ films have been more intimate, low-budget affairs (although “The Underground Railroad” for Prime Video was a long-form limited series and expansive in scope). It sounds like Jenkins wants to return to that style of filmmaking in the future. “I always believe that what is here is enough, and let me just figure out what is the chemistry to make alchemy?” Jenkins said about his approach to making movies. “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?”
The tactility, immediacy, and lived-in presence Jenkins describes isn’t really possible in digital filmmaking. It’s not that a movie like “Mufasa” can’t look realistic, only that Jenkins thinks it misses something essential and communal about the filmmaking experience. “We want just something that has texture, something that feels organic,” he remarked about digital filmmaking’s verisimilitude. “And sometimes that can be the hardest thing to dial in because every single blade of grass has to be created by someone. But you ultimately don’t want everything to feel like it’s been created by anyone. You want it to feel like it naturally arose.”
Based on his comments, it sounds like there’s too much inherent artifice in digital filmmaking for Jenkins’ liking. But his experience on “Mufasa” wouldn’t stop him from working in an adjacent mode, like with animatronics or puppets. “You know, a Muppet movie done in this style would be awesome. Awesome,” said the director. “In the same way we generate our PlayStation version of a scene, you could have a set that’s just the actual physical puppeteers, and Muppets are blocking the scene but just in a black box, you know? Or, let’s say, a green box. You’re capturing their performances and then you’re putting them all into virtual sets. I can see how that could work.”
So maybe a Muppet movie is Jenkins’ next project? Let’s see how “Mufasa: The Lion King” does in theaters after it opens on December 20 before any predictions, though. The new film is the first from Jenkins in six years, and its success will likely dictate whatever he decides to do next.