Barry Jenkins Is Right: IP Films Are Best When They’re Personal

Director Barry Jenkins is a lot of things. An Oscar-winning filmmaker, writer, and television auteur. A former Time 100 most influential person in the world. A respected director whose work in films like Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk speaks to themes of Black masculinity, childhood, and queer identity.

So why is his next film a prequel to Disney’s live-action Lion King remake? That film, released in 2019, became a behemoth hit but not exactly a critical darling. Many saw it as something of a hollow cash grab, a way to use nostalgia for the 1994 animated classic to print easy money for the Mouse House. It worked out for the studio, and they fast-tracked a prequel centered around tragic father figure Mufasa. But when Barry Jenkins signed on to direct, it sent fans spinning.

Why would an Oscar-nominated director and Oscar-winning screenwriter want in on a project so far removed from his low-budget roots? Well, as Jenkins recently took to X to explain, he doesn’t consider Mufasa: The Lion King to be divorced from the art he’s made his whole career.

After Jenkins uploaded the trailer to X, a user responded, “Barry, you’re too good and talented for Iger’s soulless machine.” To which Jenkins responded:

There is nothing soulless about The Lion King. For decades children have sat in theaters all over the world experiencing collective grief for the first time, engaging Shakespeare for the first time, across aisles in myriad languages. A most potent vessel for communal empathy.

— Barry Jenkins (@BarryJenkins) April 29, 2024

After another user chimed in, calling Jenkins a “shill,” he responded with a multi-part thread sharing past works he considers in line with his choice to do Mufasa. Programs where he taught elementary-aged kids about storytelling and filmmaking, short films and wedding videos, all with children — Black children — at the center. “Children have figured prominently in every single one of the projects from Moonlight til' now without exception. Like… BRUH,” he concluded. 

And as easy as it might be to dismiss, Jenkins has a point. Yes, working with Disney invites a major paycheck. But telling a story in The Lion King universe also gives Jenkins a way to speak to children on a massive scale. It’s a way to teach them, as he said, about loss and language and history. It’s a way to channel the love he has for his community into a tentpole where the community is more likely to receive it.

Jenkins is far from the first prestige director to step into IP. Here’s a look at other examples of directors bringing the personal into mainstream franchises and why it can be such a powerful tool for storytelling.

Other Prestige Directors Who Brought Personal Themes to IP

Promising directors step into pre-existing franchises pretty consistently these days, to varying degrees of success. But it’s not necessarily a new trend.

Superhero movies didn’t start with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, after all. Richard Donner made his first Superman film back in 1978, Tim Burton made his Batman movies in the 90s. But matching a director’s established sensibilities to existing material has become more common in the 21st century. In the case of filmmakers like Ryan Coogler or Mark Webb, sometimes a director just needs one or two hyper-realized films before snagging keys to the Black Panther or Spider-Man universes. 

Coogler strikes an interesting comparison to Jenkins. He’s also a young Black filmmaker who got his start with a critically acclaimed feature about Black youth and identity, Fruitvale Station. His second film, Creed, a Rocky spinoff, was technically his first step into IP. But Black Panther made him a superstar. And, notably, allowed the themes he established in Fruitvale Station—of community, heritage, and social justice—to ripen and expand. Fruitvale Station made $17.4 million at the global box office. Black Panther made $1.35 billion. 

Black Panther became a massive success not because of the MCU, but because Coogler wove his personal interests and cultural identity into a massive spectacle. Allowing him to make a movie so alive with his unique passion and provenance is, no doubt, what made Black Panther both a box office smash and the first superhero film to score a nomination for Best Picture.

Coogler’s is a story of success, especially now that he’s about to take his Marvel dough and make an original horror movie. Another one who followed that mold is Rian Johnson. Johnson, known for films like Brick, Looper, and The Brothers Bloom, has become synonymous with arguably the most controversial IP movie of the century, Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Say what you will about the film, and Star Wars fans certainly have things to say. But there’s no denying it was a culture-splitting moment in the zeitgeist. And a massive hit. 

But more importantly, it was Johnson getting personal. It is a story about failure and expectations, but also about class warfare and the cyclical nature of conflict—all ideas that exist in his previous work and that he doubled down on in the Knives Out films he made next.  

There’s also Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok, with its themes of found family and underdogs, also found in his earlier films like Boy and Hunt for the Wilderpeople. You can even go back to Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, about the fear of a monstrous self, not unlike The Evil Dead. Or flash-forward to Lana Wachowski’s return to the IP she co-created, The Matrix, with The Matrix Resurrections—which leaned less into big action than into the cerebral, a celebration of character and a love letter to Lana’s real-life wife, Karin. 

Whether you love or hate those films, they did what good IP films should do: disrupt. But also, they used the familiar to craft large-scale stories out of intimate personal interests. They snuck ideas of political revolution, class, race, and queer identity into franchises that speak directly to the young people who need them most. Jenkins has the opportunity to do that with Mufasa, but will it succeed? 

Why Studios Should Take More Big Swings With Story

It’s still very possible that Mufasa: The Lion King won’t be any good. Despite Jenkins’ insistence that it fits cleanly within his interests, and his sensitivity behind the lens, it’s still a Disney property at the end of the day. The first live-action Lion King was gray and ugly and visually uninspired. The trailers for Mufasa don’t inspire much hope in that regard. 

But even if it fails, it still makes an inspired pairing. And a step Disney should take more often—not just going with the easiest “yes man”. The studio’s been risk-averse of late, but for no good reason. The by-committee feeling of films like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania or the live-action The Little Mermaid didn’t translate to the kind of success that leaves an impact. There’s a growing fatigue with same-old franchise slop. The MCU logo alone doesn’t get butts in seats anymore. So why not take some big chances? Why not hire more Jenkins and Johnsons and Waititis to come in with their visual flair, great big ideas, and established critical acclaim? 

And not only does it create better art, but it’s also financially lucrative. Those aforementioned films, all released in 2023, met varying levels of disappointment, box office-wise. But bolder, more artistically driven projects often catch the public attention in a way that not only creates conversation but also translates to financial success. Black Panther had the highest gross of any non-Avengers MCU movie. (With the exception of Spider-Man: No Way Home, which was billed as a major reunion event.) Thor: Ragnarok was the highest-grossing Thor movie. The Last Jedi made $1.33 billion, compared to the less-inspired The Rise of Skywalker, which made $1.08 billion. And look at Nolan’s Batman movies, which started so strongly with Batman Begins that The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises both became billion-dollar grossers. 

Franchise films have so much opportunity. When done right, they not only fill seats in big-release platforms, but can light the imaginations of generations of children. Children who could be their own Barry Jenkins one day. Their own Ryan Coogler. People with so much to say, they deserve the largest possible audience to say it to. 

IP fare is here to stay. We might as well let it sing.