‘Cruella’ Composer Nicholas Britell to Score Disney’s ‘The Lion King’ Prequel

Composer Nicholas Britell, who worked on Disney’s Cruella and is scoring the upcoming Disney+ Star Wars series, Andor, is set to work on another tentpole Disney franchise.

While speaking with The Playlist, Britell revealed that he is working on Disney’s The Lion King prequel, an origin story of the 2019 billion-dollar remake. His involvement reteams him with his Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk director Barry Jenkins. When asked if he’s not working on The Lion King based on his busy schedule, Britell said, “No, I am. I am doing it.”

Britell continued by saying he doesn’t know if his involvement is officially revealed, well, the cats out of the bag now. “Barry and I are working together on that. And actually, we’ve already been working together on that for a while. I actually don’t even know the official, I actually don’t even know what they have on the calendar for the official release. But you know, it’s a large scale project and it’s a long time period of work that we’re putting into it, for sure. You know, we meet up, when I’m in LA I work on it with him, when he’s in New York we work on it together. So yeah. Yeah.”

Nicholas Britell takes over composing duties from famed composer Hans Zimmer, who scored both the 1994 Walt Disney Animation original and the Jon Favreau-directed 2019 remake.

Kelvin Harrison Jr. will take on the role of Mufasa, taking over the role from James Earl Jones. Aaron Pierre will be voicing Taka, the real name for Scar before he became the villain we know him to be. Additional casting is currently underway, so we can expect to hear some big-name stars joining in the coming weeks. New characters and some familiar characters will appear. Additional casting announcements are expected at Disney’s D23 Expo in September.

The untitled prequel (which Disney describes as live-action) will continue with the photorealistic animation technology that director Jon Favreau used in the blockbuster 2019 update of the beloved franchise. Jeff Nathanson, who scripted the last instalment, is back in the fold. The film will be produced by Adele Romanski and Mark Ceryak. Though no release date has been officially announced, it is likely that this will be a theatrical release, rather than one going straight to Disney+.

There is no official title as of yet- however, the working title is confirmed to be Wonderwall.