Mufasa: The Lion King marks the first Lion King movie after the death of iconic actor James Earl Jones, who first gave voice to the legendary character in 1994. Who is carrying the torch forward? Before he transitioned to feature directing, Fowler worked as an animator at Tim Miller’s Blur Studio for many years, helping craft multiple high-res cut scenes for various Sonic the Hedgehog video games. Most notably, he contributed to Sega’s multi-platform spinoff game, Shadow the Hedgehog (2005), and when he eventually had the chance to tease a character in the mid-credits of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022), he jumped at the chance to welcome the “little badass” to the big screen. Given that the character is a darker version of Sonic — a hedgehog who’s driven by a wide-ranging revenge campaign — Mr. John Wick himself, Keanu Reeves, slid seamlessly into the role. Director Barry Jenkins doesn’t waste any time in paying tribute to Jones in Mufasa: The Lion King, which begins with a title card that reads, “In remembrance of James Earl Jones.” During the promotion of Sonic 2, Jim Carrey, who plays Sonic’s (Ben Schwartz) archnemesis Dr. Ivo Robotnik, received a great deal of attention for his talk of impending retirement, but Fowler was never fazed by the hypothetical. I did, and it’s now worth about a hundred thousand dollars, so, hopefully, Jim has got it locked up somewhere. It was a great early conversation about exploring the Robotnik family tree and designing Gerald, the grandfather, from the ground up. Jim had a lot of fun working with Mark Coulier, our makeup designer, to create Gerald’s look. We would look at the sculpts together, and Jim would just have some little specific notes and ideas. As a director, I love that. I love when an actor is engaged and wants to help craft the character. Jones last voiced Mufasa for the 2019 live-action/CG hybrid remake of The Lion King. Prior to that, the prolific actor lended his distinctive bass-baritone voice to the 1988 sequel to the original hand-drawn Lion King, titled The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride. I never bought that for a second. Jim has too much fun playing this character. If we dangled a really great new idea for him to play with and explore as Robotnik, then I felt that he would be interested in coming back Jones died on Sept. 8 at age 93. Before his death, the venerable actor ensured that his vocal performance as Star Wars’ classic villain Darth Vader would live on forever. Carrey has truly been a creative force on the Sonic films. Case in point, on the set of Sonic 2, he whipped out his phone and turned on Pantera’s “Walk,” as part of a pitch that involved Robotnik playing “leg guitar” inside his Giant Eggman Robot. So Fowler knew that the celebrated actor wouldn’t be able to just turn that switch off, especially when Sonic 3‘s tantalizing dual roles of Ivo Robotnik and his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, were presented to him. GVO GVO GVO GVO GVO GVO GVO GVO GVO