Written by Lindsey Cook
Whoa, what a day of announcements! The Walt Disney Company hosted its annual Investor Day to recap shareholders on 2020 and also update them on all of their upcoming projects, and between Disney Animation, Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and so on, there was a TON of news. So much so that we figured it would be easier to recap with a blog post!
Disney+ was unsurprisingly the focus of the announcements. As the theatrical model has seen a major shakeup this year, Disney is going all in on its one-year-old streaming service, which now boasts over 86 million subscribers.
Take a look at the major announcements from the House of Mouse:
Disney Live Action
The trend of remaking beloved animated classics into live action films continues.- Let's start things off with the news that has Team White Rice most excited: the Enchanted sequel, Disenchanted, is FINALLY a go. Amy Adams will reprise her role as Giselle in a Disney+ series
- The full cast for the live-action The Little Mermaid has been unveiled. I think we knew all these announcements previously, but just in case, check out the starring cast here
- Peter Pan & Wendy is coming to Disney+ and will star Yara Shahidi as Tinker Bell and Jude Law as Captain Hook
- This is a team up we can get behind. John Mulaney and Andy Samberg are starring as Chip N' Dale in Chip N' Dale: Rescue Rangers, coming soon to Disney+. The movie will be an animated/live-action hybrid
- A "live-action retelling" of Pinocchio is coming to Disney+ with Robert Zemeckis directing and Tom Hanks starring
Disney Animation
Content from Disney's animation studio is making its way to Disney+ soon.
- Disney's upcoming animated film Raya and the Last Dragon will have a day and date release with a twist. The film will debut both in theaters and for Premier Access (similar to Mulan) on Disney+ on March 5, 2021
- Encanto, a new animated film about a magical family in Colombia, will debut next fall, featuring music by Lin-Manuel Miranda
- Multiple Disney animated films are getting spinoff TV shows on Disney+: Baymax!, Zootopia+, and Tiana are coming to the service in 2022, and Moana (the series) is coming in 2023. Is Zootopia+ a 30 Rock-esque series about the animal version of a Disney+ service? Who knows!
- Disney Animation is also teaming up Pan-African company Kugali for a science-fiction animated series called Iwájú, coming to the streaming service in 2022
Star Wars
After the success of The Mandalorian, Disney is diving headfirst into expanding the Star Wars television universe with 10 planned series over the next few years.
- Patty Jenkins, the Wonder Woman director, will direct the next Star Wars film, Rogue Squadron, scheduled for a 2023 release
- Ahsoka Tano, who we just saw pop up in the second season of The Mandalorian, will receive her own spinoff called Ahsoka where Rosario Dawson will continue to portray the Jedi
- Hayden Christensen will return as Darth Vader alongside Ewan McGregor in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series
- The Casian Andor series Andor was confirmed with a new sizzle reel, which will see Diego Luna return as his Rogue One character
- Dear White People director Justin Simien is developing a series based on Lando Calrissian called Lando
- Other planned series include: Rangers of the New Republic, an animated series called The Bad Batch, and a series of animated shorts called Star Wars: Visions
Marvel
The next phase of the MCU will expand into television, with several Marvel properties set to appear on Disney+.
- Disney+'s first Marvel series, WandaVision, is almost here! The show debuts on January 15, and we got a new trailer to celebrate
- Falcon and the Winter Soldier will premiere on March 19, 2021. We got a first trailer for the upcoming series
- We also got a sneak peek at Loki, another Marvel series that will see Tom Hiddleston reprise his role as the notorious trickster. That series is set to launch May 2021
- Marvel also shared a first look at What If...? an animated series that will reimagine your favorite Marvel characters if they took different paths. The series will premiere in summer 2021
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will debut in theaters on July 9, 2021. The film has wrapped production, and Marvel revealed the full cast
- We got a first look at Ms. Marvel, an upcoming Disney+ series
- Speaking of Ms. Marvel, the character will also appear in 2022's Captain Marvel 2. Nia DaCosta (Candyman) is attached to direct, and Brie Larson will return as the titular character
- Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn will return to the Marvel universe as Nick Fury and Talos, respectively, in Secret Invasion, coming soon to Disney+. Unclear if that is a series, movie, or something else! We love a cryptic announcement
- Don Cheadle will also reprise his role as James Rhodes (also known as War Machine) in Armor Wars, an upcoming Disney+ series about what happens when Tony Stark's technology gets into the wrong hands
- The Guardians of the Galaxy are getting a holiday special, aptly titled The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, in 2022. James Gunn will return to direct the Disney+ special
- Speaking of Guardians, Groot is getting his own series of shorts called, what else, I Am Groot, coming soon
- A third Ant-Man movie, called Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has been confirmed. Peyton Reed will return to direct, and Kathryn Newton and Jonathan Majors are joining Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, and Michelle Pfeiffer in the cast
- Just what we needed, another Fantastic Four movie! Jon Watts (who's directed the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies) is set to direct
Other Major Headlines
Elsewhere in the Disneysphere...
- Chris Evans is going to infinity and beyond. He's voicing Buzz Lightyear in Lightyear, an upcoming movie that will center on the story of the "human Buzz Lightyear that the toy is based on"...okay!
- Reality's favorite family is back. The Kardashians are ditching NBC and E! for Disney, as they've signed a new deal to develop content for Hulu. Just when we thought the end of Keeping Up With The Kardashians meant the end of seeing them on TV...
- Sequels like Hocus Pocus 2 and Sister Act 3 were confirmed, as well as a Three Men and a Baby reboot starring Zac Efron and a Cheaper By The Dozen reboot starring Kenya Barris and Gabrielle Union
...and I'm sure I'm forgetting something! This recap covers more news from Disney-owned properties like ESPN and FX too. But wow, we get it, Disney, you own everything. So, what announcements are you most excited about?