ANAHEIM, Calif. (news agencies) — Disney teased upcoming its movies and television series including “Moana 2” in a rousing showcase featuring sneak peaks, live performances and surprise appearances from actors including Dwayne Johnson, Zoe Saldaña and Jude Law.
Fans at Disney’s D23 convention welcomed CEO Bob Iger with a standing ovation Friday at the top of the showcase. “The world needs to be entertained maybe even more so now than ever before and we take that responsibility seriously,” he said before presentations teased new movies in the “Avatar,” “Toy Story” and “Incredibles” franchises.
In the evening’s first surprise, Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson of “Moana” jolted the crowd of over 15,000 at the Honda Center with a performance of a song featuring drummers and dancers in costumes styled after the beloved animated movie.
The actors are reprising their roles as Moana and Maui, respectively, in “Moana 2,” which is set to hit theaters Nov. 27. Before showing an extended sneak peek of the film, Johnson said that working on the films has been special to him, noting that his daughters, who are 6 and 8 years old, were in the crowd.
Disney subsequently released the film’s first full-length trailer online. The footage introduces characters new (Moana now has a little sister) and familiar, like her pet pig Pua and the Kakamora, a band of dart-blowing coconut-clad pirates.
Johnson also announced that he’d be continuing his long-running work on Disney projects to create a “Monster Jam” live-action movie. The studio did not announce any updates to Johnson’s other Disney project, the live-action “Moana,” that is in development.
Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni teased the May 2026 Star Wars film “The Mandalorian & Grogu,” which they said only started filming recently. Favreau said he felt compelled to “put something together” for the showcase and showed a brief clip featuring the title characters, as he put it, “on a whole new journey.”
Law spoke about “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew,” announcing it will be coming to Disney+ on Dec. 3.
“I fell in love with ‘Star Wars’ when I was a 10-year-old boy,” Law said before he sharing footage from the show, which has been billed as a coming-of-age tale.
Pixar Animation Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter announced the studio is developing a third “The Incredibles” movie, with Brad Bird returning as director.
“Toy Story 5” director Andrew Stanton said it’ll be toys versus tech in the summer 2026 film featuring Woody, Buzz and the rest of the crew.
Jennifer Lee, the chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios, shared concept art from “Frozen III” that features Anna, Elsa and Olaf looking onto the horizon with an ominous creature lurking close behind them. The film will arrive in 2027.
Director James Cameron and actors Zoe Saldaña and Sam Worthington reunited on stage to announce the official title of the third “Avatar” movie: “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”
“The new film is not what you expect, but it’s definitely what you want,” said Cameron, who will be bestowed “Disney Legends” status in a ceremony to close out D23 on Sunday.
Fans got a look at “Zootopia 2,” coming to theaters November 2025. The film’s star Ginnifer Goodwin also announced Ke Huy Quan will be joining the cast as a snake.
Following the blitz of announcements from Marvel at Comic-Con International, the studio’s president Kevin Feige came out after a welcome video from Ryan Reynolds, who thanked the crowd for supporting his box office record-breaking “Deadpool & Wolverine.”
Ryan Coogler, the director of the “Black Panther” movies, joined Feige to discuss “Ironheart,” starring Dominique Thorne and Anthony Ramos. The cast introduced a first look at the series that follows Thorne’s character, Riri Williams, who was first introduced in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”
Feige also spoke about “Marvel’s first family,” the Fantastic Four. Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach said hello to the audience in a short video clip in their costumes from the set in the U.K., where filming began late last month.
Fans also got a glimpse of the first look at “Daredevil: Born Again,” set to start streaming on Disney+ in March. Feige said the new series will channel the essence of the Netflix original, with Charlie Cox reprising his role as Matt Murdock, but will also set the characters on a new path. A secon season is in the works.
Music will be a key part of “Mufasa: The Lion King,” the upcoming prequel to the 2019 photo-realistic film, a remake of the 1994 animated classic. Director Barry Jenkins and Lin-Manuel Miranda, who created original music for the new movie, introduced a clip featuring a new song, “I Always Wanted a Brother,” which depicts the early relationship between Mufasa and Scar.
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