News from the Kingdom: Iger Updates Disney Shareholders (and Fans) on Star Wars, Pixar, and Marvel Slates
For Disney, the next two years will bring more Mando, more Marvel, and more Moana.
Disney CEO Bob Iger updated shareholders on what to expect with Disney’s various franchises, sharing what’s next for the conglomerate’s many franchises, including Star Wars, Marvel, and Pixar, surprising many by announcing that 2024 would bring a big screen sequel to its 2016 hit Moana.
In a short teaser trailer, Moana blows a conch shell, and in his call, Iger announced that the sequel, originally planned as a TV series, would be a feature film, rolling into theaters this November.
“Moana remains an incredibly popular franchise,” Iger said in a statement. “We can’t wait to give you more of Moana and Maui when ‘Moana 2’ comes to theaters this November.”
Disney and Pixar’s other upcoming films seem to show that the company, possibly smarting from the underperformance of last year’s original film Wish, leaning heavily on sequels to established hits.
According to Iger, Moana will be released on November 27th of this year, and almost exactly a year later, the House of Mouse will put Zootopia 2 in theaters November 26th, 2025. 2026 will bring Toy Story 5 and Frozen 3.
Over in the Star Wars Universe, the next two films will also rely on the familiar for its next two features, both scheduled for a 2026 release. Beloved small screen characters The Mandalorian and Grogu will finally fill the big screen in a spinoff of the popular Disney+ series directed by Jon Favreau. And fanboys can rejoice as Star Wars: New Jedi Order will give them the next installment of the mainline trilogy starring Daisy Ridley.
Unscheduled but still planned is another movie featuring Donald Glover as young Lando Calrissian, which Glover is writing with his brother Stephen, having been given creative control of the film. Donald Glover played the intergalactic adventurerer in 2018’s Solo.
Over at Marvel, there’s more talk about what Iger didn’t say than what he did. Iger did not mention the planned anti-hero ensemble film Thunderbolts when revealing the 2025 slate. Thunderbolts will feature Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, Wyatt Russell as John Walker, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, and David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov aka the Red Guardian, along with several other Marvel rogue characters. However, production delays due to the strikes have already shaken up the cast, with Steven Yuen being dropped as Sentry and Ayo Edebiri being replaced by Geraldine Viswanathan.
Mahershala Ali’s Blade movie was also not brought up. What is definitely on the schedule, according to Iger, is Captain America: Brave New World, coming this February 14th, and Fantastic Four slated for May 2nd, 2025. Disney may be hesitant to commit to more for Marvel due to its relatively lackluster showing in 2023, with The Marvels especially underperforming at the box office.