One of the biggest movies of 2024 was Mufasa: The Lion King, a film which acts as a prequel to the 2019 The Lion King remake, telling the story of the тιтular Mufasa before he became the king we saw in the 2019 film. Mufasa: The Lion King received pretty middling reviews, at least on the critical side, and had a slow box office start, before ramping up to become a big commercial hit. Now, the film has officially been released on streaming services, bringing it to everyone who didn’t manage to catch it in theaters.
Since the film’s release in December of last year, the question of when it will be arriving on streaming platforms has been a big one for general audiences, who are generally less willing to go to a movie theater with the dominance of modern streaming services. Mufasa is obviously a Disney movie, and since the debut of Disney+, plenty of people have been content to wait for a film to be released on the site, and after 3 months of its theatrical and PVOD releases, Mufasa finally has been.
Mufasa: The Lion King Is Now Streaming On Disney+
The Origin Of The Pride Lands’ Greatest King Is Available On The Platform
The film was released on Disney+ on Wednesday, March 26th, marking the end of the movie’s release schedule. The prequel found a good amount of success on PVOD services, where Mufasa‘s bonus features were first officially unveiled, revealing many behind-the-scenes tidbits about the movie’s setting, characters, and production information. Now, it is out for anyone with a Disney+ subscription to watch, which will undoubtedly bring the film to many more people, as those who didn’t want to see it enough to spend money at the theater will have easy access in their own homes.
How Mufasa’s Box Office & Reviews Compares To 2019’s The Lion King
Both Films Performed Very Similarly, Critically And Commercially
After the mᴀssive success of 2019’s pH๏τorealistic The Lion King remake, Disney was certainly looking to see the best way to expand that universe, building off the success of their biggest classic animated film remake so far, and Mufasa was chosen to bring the franchise forwards. It made sense, as it involved characters that were already very well known in Mufasa and Scar, which would be much more likely to get people in the theater than making a full sequel that focused on more obscure The Lion King characters.
|
The Lion King Film |
Worldwide Box Office |
Tomatometer Score |
Audience Score |
|---|---|---|---|
|
The Lion King (2019) |
$1,657,943,394 |
51% |
88% |
|
Mufasa: The Lion King |
$719,406,772 |
56% |
89% |
Both The Lion King and Mufasa earned a very solid amount of money at the box office, though The Lion King obviously earned more, as it remains one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. Both movies earned very mixed reviews from Rotten Tomatoes critics, though Mufasa‘s more original story allowed it to get a slight upper hand against the previous film. The user review scores are essentially identical, with general audiences and families finding a lot of enjoyment in the first remake and Mufasa: The Lion King, regardless of the critical reception.
