How to watch Mufasa: The Lion King – is it streaming?

The film, which uses photorealistic animation, serves as a prequel to the classic story, focusing on how the titular character (Aaron Pierre) and his notorious brother Scar (Kelvin Harrison Jr) first came to be on such terrible terms.

It also includes several original new songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, with even Mads Mikkelsen getting the chance to sing his own musical number – something which he confessed to RadioTimes.com that he had been rather nervous about.

With the film having now been available to watch in cinemas for a few weeks, you might be wondering when you'll be able to check it out from the comfort of your own home.

Read on for everything you need to know about how to watch Mufasa: The Lion King.

How to watch Mufasa: The Lion King – is it streaming?

Although the film will eventually be made available on Disney Plus – as is the case for all the studio's theatrical releases – for the time being the only way you can catch it is by taking a trip to the pictures.

But if you're hoping to watch it in your own home sooner rather than later, the good news if that it's now been announced the film will be made available for digital download on Tuesday 18th February.

From that date onwards, it will be available to rent and purchase on a number of platforms including Prime Video, Sky Store, Apple TV & Google Play.

The film was initially released in cinemas just before Christmas, on Friday 20th December, and has performed well at the global box office. Following it's release, it sat top of the UK box office for three weeks on the spin and it has banked more than $650m worldwide – although it admittedly still has a ways to go to get anywhere near the mammoth total of $1.6billion made by the earlier film.

When will Mufasa: The Lion King arrive on Disney Plus?

At the moment, it remains to be seen exactly when Mufasa will have its Disney Plus debut – but if we look back at Disney's most recent major releases, we can work out a rough estimate.

Fellow blockbusters Deadpool & Wolverine and Inside Out 2 – which were both major box office successes – each had 100-day theatrical exclusive windows, something which we can expect to also be the case with this film.

With that in mind, we're looking at a late March release at the earliest, although given Disney Plus normally opts to release major films on the platforms on Wednesdays, perhaps Wednesday 2nd April is the best guess for now.

We'll keep this page updated as and when we hear any more concrete news.

If that seems like a long wait, you can at least watch a special five-minute documentary that takes viewers behind the scenes of the film, featuring insight from Jenkins and Miranda and some BTS footage.

And, of course, there's lots of other Lion King material on the platform, including the previous 2019 version, the classic 1994 original and its 1998 sequel The Lion King 2.

Mufasa: The Lion King trailer

If you've not seen the film yet and can't decide whether to wait for the streaming release or pay a visit to your local cinema, you can get a better idea of what to expect from the film by viewing the below trailer.

Mufasa: The Lion King is now showing in UK cinemas.

Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.