As streaming continues to dominate popular entertainment, Disney+ has plenty of skin in the game. Across two panels at this year’s D23 Expo in Anaheim California, the conglomerate previewed streaming offerings from Willow to a Marvel werewolf horror, plus Pixar and Star Wars series. Flicks’ Dominic Corry was in attendance.
Following a live performance of “When You Wish Upon a Star” by Oscar-nominee Cynthia Erivo (who plays the Blue Fairy in Robert Zemeckis’ new live-action Pinocchio, which just went live on Disney+), the main Friday panel kicked off with previews of two other upcoming Disney+ exclusive sequels: Hocus Pocus 2 and Disenchanted.
Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy and Better Midler showed up via video to present the full trailer for Hocus Pocus 2, and the 7000-strong crowd in Hall D23 especially perked up with the late-trailer tease of Doug Jones’ return as fan-favourite character Billy Butcherson.
The cast of Disenchanted—including leads Amy Adams and Maya Rudolph in full Disney-tourist get-up—showed up in person to present their official trailer, which is the first look fans have gotten of the sequel to the hit 2007 film that revolved around Disney animation tropes coming to life. Naturally, it all went down well with the throngs of Disney-obsessives, who screamed loudest for live action Disney princes James Marsden and Patrick Dempsey.
Pixar head Pete Doctor announced Win or Lose, Pixar’s first TV show, centred around a high-concept narrative: each episode will present the week leading up to a softball game from the perspective of a different character.
Walt Disney Animation, which sometimes seems like it’s outpacing Pixar in terms of pure creativity, previewed its Zootopia+ anthology series, which appears every bit as zippy and witty as the 2016 film. Also previewed was Iwájú, a new collaboration between WDA and Pan-African comic book entertainment company Kugali. It looked pretty cool.
Day two kicked off with a Lucasfilm presentation anchored by the cast of the new Star Wars series Andor, which premieres with three episodes (“It’ll be like watching a movie!” promised star Diego Luna) on September 21st . The full trailer was unveiled to a rapturous response.
Next came out the cast of the new Willow series, which also had a full trailer to debut, and new cast member Christian Slater to announce. Lead Warwick Davis suggested Slater’s character may be filling some of the gaps left by the absence of Val Kilmer’s Madmartigan.
For a certain section of the Star Wars fandom, Dave Filoni (who created Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars: Rebels and contributed significantly to The Mandalorian) is doing the best Star Wars work out there. So he was heartily welcomed when he came out to reveal a trailer for his upcoming anthology series Tales of the Jedi, which looks jaw-droppingly good. Of the six episodes, half will fill in Ahsoka’s backstory, while the other three will go into Count Dooku’s background. Cannot wait.
Filoni also talked a bit about season two of The Bad Batch (featuring Michelle Ang as the Kiwi-accented female clone Omega) and the live-action Ahsoka series before bringing out long time collaborator Jon Favreau to tease the new live action Star Wars series Skeleton Crew (we only got to see a picture of Jude Law in character), co-created by Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts.
The cast of The Mandalorian then came out to preview season three of their beloved show, which now stands as the flagship Star Wars series. The teaser trailer promises much Mandalore-set action, which as viewers of Clone Wars and Rebels know, makes for very good Star Wars. There are shots in the trailer taken straight out of some of those animated shows, and I love it.
The Marvel presentation kicked off with a live performance of a song from Rogers!: The Musical as seen in the Hawkeye TV show. Which was kinda cool. I guess. We then got treated to various tidbits from various upcoming TV shows, most of which had been previously announced.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever director Ryan Coogler showed a teaser trailer for Ironheart, which he is producing. Taking place after the events of the BP sequel, the show will follow Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), a genius inventor making her own super-powered exo-suit. Coogler teased that the series (co-starring Anthony Ramos) will centre around the dynamic of technology vs magic.
Acclaimed composer Michael Giacchino (Up, The Batman) came out to preview his directorial debut, Werewolf By Night. Billed as a “Special Presentation”, the Gael García Bernal-starring (Y Tu Mamá También reunion with Diego Luna backstage!) one-off is even preceded by a 70s network television-esque introductory bumper, complete with fanfare music composed by Giacchino. Nice.
Don Cheadle then came out to present a trailer for his upcoming series Secret Invasion (co-starring Ben Mendelsohn and Samuel L. Jackson) and confirm his subsequent show Armor Wars, inspired by one of the best-regarded Iron Man comic storylines ever.
The cast of Loki presented a teaser trailer for season two of that show—so far it’s the only Marvel series to get a second season. The teaser featured new cast member Ke Huy Quan, who has some recent experience with multiverses. Plus he got to have a heart-warming reunion backstage with Temple of Doom co-star Harrison Ford…
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Vincent D’Onofrio and star Alaqua Cox were on hand to preview their upcoming series Echo, centred around the hearing-impaired hero introduced on Hawkeye. D’Onofrio also welcomed Charlie Cox onstage to talk about their upcoming show Daredevil: Born Again, which sees the hero back in a regular series five years after its Netflix show ended.
All throughout, the fans were eating it up. Disney knows what they want, and is prepared to provide an endless stream of it.
