By Taylor Rice
This year’s Disney Expo, a convention in which Disney announces future projects, took place at the Anaheim Convention Center from September 9th to the 11th. During this year’s presentation, Disney showed many sneak peaks of future productions, sharing trailers and release dates for many future shows and movies.
Let’s start with the announcements made about multi episode series on Disney+.
Marvel fans are certainly in for a treat. Multiple series taking place in the marvel universe were name dropped and expanded upon. Secret Invasion, a show following the skrull’s secret invasion of the earth, premiers in 2023; and Werewolf by Night, a MCU Halloween special, premiers October 7th on Disney+. The release dates for Armor Wars, Loki season 2, and Echo are all to be announced; while Daredevil: Born Again is set to begin production in 2023.
In the realm of Lucasfilm (aka Star Wars), multiple shows were announced. At the expo, they showed a final trailer for the series Andor, starring Diego Luna, is set to premiere September 21st. A trailer for The Mandelorian season 3 was also released. It was announced that the Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 2 release date was pushed back from September 28 to January 4th. And Finally, Tales of the Jedi debuted their first trailer and announced an October 26 premiere date.
Moving onto Disney+ original series, many announcements were made. Season 2 of Big Shot is slated to premiere October 12 and season 2 of The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder will be released in February.
We also saw a first look at the original series American Born Chinese, based on the graphic novel of the same name by Gene Luen Yang, which is set to be released in 2023. Another original series premiering in 2023 is Iwaju, a series created in collaboration with Pan-African comic book entertainment company Kugali. Win or Lose, Pixar’s first longform series was announced to start streaming in 2023, and The Muppet Mayhem will also hit the streaming service in 2023.
The first trailer released for National Treasure: Edge of History along with the premiere date of the first two episodes (December 14). The Santa Clauses, starring Tim Allen, also gave a first-look teaser and its debut date of November 16. A new trailer was also shown for the Zootopia short-form series, which launches on disney+ November 9th.
A variety of new movies were also announced.
Starting with the Marvel live action films, Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania was announced to hit theaters February 17th, with Paul Rudd stating, “This is going to be unlike anything you’ve ever seen from us.” Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the first Black Panther film without Chadwick Boseman, opens November 11 in theaters. In the year 2024, Captain America: New World Order, Fantastic Four (a reboot), and Thunderbolts are all announced to arrive in theaters.
Lucas Films revealed trailers for 2 live action films. The trailer for Indiana Jones 5 was released to audiences, and actor Harrison Ford states that this will be the last time playing the daring archeologist; saying, “I will not fall down for you again.” A trailer for Willow was also dropped, a reimagining of the 1988 fantasy classic. 20th Century also showed loads of footage from Jame Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water, the long awaited sequel to the first Avatar film.
A new trailer for Hocus Pocus 2 was shown, with a set release date onto Disney+ on September 30. Disenchanted, the sequel to Enchanted, showed its first trailer and announced its streaming date of November 24th on Disney+. Peter Pan and Wendy, a seemingly live action remake of Peter Pan was announced to start streaming on Disney+ in 2023. The new live action The Little Mermaid was also stated to hit theaters exclusively nationwide May 26, 2023
Finally, Disney also announced the production of multiple animated features.
Pixar announced the creation of three animated features. Elemental, with lead voices Mamoudou Athie and Leah Lewis, is set to premiere June 16. Elio, about 11-year-old dreamer Elio, will be released in spring 2024. Pixar also confirmed that a sequel to Inside Out is in the works, with a slated release date of the summer of 2024.
A new trailer was released for the much anticipated Disney animated film Strange World, which opens in theaters November 23. A projected fall 2023 release was also announced for Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Wish.
This year’s Disney Expo was certainly informative. Multiple announcements were made and many exciting trailers were released. We can’t wait to see all these new motion pictures on screen.
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