Disney has used D23 2026 to put several years of its entertainment strategy on display, unveiling a packed roadmap that stretches from this autumn through 2029. Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars and Walt Disney Animation supplied many of the biggest announcements, but the wider picture was arguably more revealing: Disney is leaning heavily on franchises audiences already know while continuing to make room for a smaller collection of original films and series.
The Disney Entertainment Showcase in Anaheim covered theatrical releases, Disney+ series, games and stage productions, with projects including Avengers: Doomsday, a new X-Men movie, Frozen 3, Incredibles 3, Coco 2, Star Wars: Starfighter, Ahsoka season two and a live-action Tangled. It is a formidable amount of recognizable intellectual property, even by Disney standards.
Marvel Studios provided some of the evening’s most closely watched updates. Avengers: Doomsday remains scheduled for December 18, 2026, with Anthony and Joe Russo directing. Robert Downey Jr. will play Victor von Doom, rather than returning as Tony Stark, while Chris Evans is back as Steve Rogers. The enormous ensemble also includes Chris Hemsworth, Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Anthony Mackie, Florence Pugh, Paul Rudd, Tom Hiddleston, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, James Marsden and numerous other veterans of Marvel’s interconnected films.
That scale makes Doomsday one of Marvel’s clearest attempts to turn its long screen history into an event in itself. The studio spent years expanding the MCU across films and streaming series after Avengers: Endgame, with mixed results in terms of audience enthusiasm. Bringing together characters associated with the Avengers, Fantastic Four and X-Men eras gives Doomsday considerable nostalgic firepower, though the size of the cast also raises the familiar challenge of giving all those returning faces something meaningful to do.
Marvel’s television slate is moving forward as well. VisionQuest premieres on Disney+ on October 14, 2026, with Paul Bettany returning as Vision and James Spader reprising Ultron. The series is being positioned as the third part of a loose trilogy that began with WandaVision and continued with Agatha All Along.
Further out, Marvel confirmed more details about its new X-Men film, which is scheduled for May 5, 2028. Sadie Sink will play Jean Grey, Kit Connor is Scott Summers, Christopher Abbott takes the role of Charles Xavier, Samara Weaving will play Emma Frost, Inde Navarrette is Rogue and Maya Boyd is Storm. Adam Driver has also joined the cast as Nathaniel Milbury. Jake Schreier, director of Thunderbolts*, is attached to direct.
For Marvel, the X-Men project carries particular weight. Disney gained access to the characters through its acquisition of 21st Century Fox, but Marvel Studios has taken a deliberately gradual approach to integrating mutants into its wider cinematic universe. A dedicated X-Men film marks a much more substantial step and could eventually give the MCU another major narrative pillar alongside the Avengers and Fantastic Four.
Lucasfilm, meanwhile, offered updates across both streaming and cinema. Ahsoka season two will premiere January 20, 2027 on Disney+, continuing the story of Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano as Grand Admiral Thrawn emerges as a threat to the New Republic. Hayden Christensen and Eman Esfandi joined Dawson at D23 as Lucasfilm presented the new season.
The theatrical side of Star Wars will expand with Star Wars: Starfighter, opening May 28, 2027. Shawn Levy is directing, with Ryan Gosling leading a cast that also includes Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre and Amy Adams. The film is being presented as a new adventure rather than another direct continuation of the Skywalker saga, an important distinction for a franchise that has spent years exploring different ways to move beyond its original characters while still operating inside the same galaxy.
Pixar also arrived with a mixture of sequels and original ideas. Incredibles 3 is now set for June 16, 2028, with Elemental director Peter Sohn taking the director’s chair and Brad Bird involved as a producer. Coco 2 is planned for November 2029 and will reunite director Lee Unkrich and co-director Adrian Molina. Concept art shown at D23 depicts Miguel as a teenager, while Benjamin Bratt will return as Ernesto de la Cruz.
Coco is also crossing into Disney’s gaming business. Square Enix and Disney revealed that Kingdom Hearts IV will feature a world inspired by the Pixar film, with the long-awaited game currently targeting late 2027. Disney is additionally developing a Kingdom Hearts anime series with Square Enix for Disney Channel and Disney+, although a release date has not yet been announced.
The more intriguing part of Pixar’s slate may be its original projects. Ghost Market is scheduled for March 2028 and takes place around ʻOno Market, a hidden plate lunch shop on Oʻahu’s North Shore that serves spirits caught between life and death. Trevor Jimenez and Jesse Andrews are directing.
Before that comes Gatto on March 5, 2027. Directed by Luca filmmaker Enrico Casarosa, the Venice-set animated film follows Nero, a black cat voiced by Mark Ruffalo who is indebted to feline mob boss Rocco, voiced by Laurence Fishburne. Both films give Pixar opportunities to build new worlds at a time when the studio is also relying increasingly on sequels to its biggest properties.
Walt Disney Animation is following a comparable strategy. Zootopia 3 is officially in early development, although Disney has not announced a release date. Frozen 3 is much further along, arriving November 24, 2027, with Jennifer Lee and Trent Correy directing. New footage shown at D23 teased another threat for Anna, Elsa and their companions, including a new character whose abilities appear positioned to challenge Elsa.
The studio also has original projects in development. Hexed arrives November 25, 2026, with Hailee Steinfeld voicing teenager Billie Doe, alongside Rashida Jones, Walton Goggins and Jodie Foster. Clay, currently a working title, is planned for 2028 and stars Kieran Culkin as Flip, a character who becomes an unwilling mentor to a young ball of clay named Mushy.
Disney’s live-action and family slate is similarly crowded. Lilo & Stitch 2 will begin production in Hawaiʻi later in 2026 before opening May 26, 2028. Chris Sanders, who co-created and directed the original 2002 animated movie and has long provided Stitch’s voice, will direct the sequel. The follow-up comes after the 2025 live-action Lilo & Stitch crossed $1 billion at the global box office, making another installment unsurprising.
A live-action Tangled is scheduled for March 31, 2028, with Teagan Croft playing Rapunzel, Milo Manheim as Flynn Rider and Kathryn Hahn as Mother Gothel. Michael Gracey is directing, while Diego Luna and Caitríona Balfe are among the supporting cast.
Bluey is making the jump to cinemas too. The Bluey Movie, written and directed by series creator Joe Brumm, arrives August 6, 2027. Ludo Studio is producing in collaboration with BBC Studios, with Disney handling theatrical distribution. For Disney, Bluey represents a somewhat different kind of franchise opportunity: the company did not create the television phenomenon, but its distribution relationship has helped make the series an important part of the Disney+ family offering in many markets.
Ice Age is also returning. Ice Age: Boiling Point opens February 5, 2027 and brings back characters including Manny, Sid, Diego, Ellie and Buck. The continuation demonstrates the increasingly broad catalogue Disney can draw upon following the Fox acquisition, even as the company simultaneously revives much older pieces of its own history.
Perhaps the clearest example is Oswald, a live-action and animated hybrid Disney+ series built around Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Created by Jon Favreau, the series imagines the early Disney character emerging into the modern world after being hidden away since the 1920s. It premieres February 17, 2027. Oswald occupies an unusual place in Disney history, predating Mickey Mouse, which makes the character’s return as a contemporary streaming property particularly notable.
Television announcements extended beyond Marvel and Star Wars. Percy Jackson and the Olympians returns for its third season on November 20, 2026, while Camp Rock 3 is already streaming. National Geographic’s LION, filmed over four years and following a lion cub named Kio in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, premieres August 19 on National Geographic before reaching Disney+ and Hulu the following day.
Disney also confirmed that The Greatest Showman is heading to London’s West End. The stage adaptation, based on the 2017 film and featuring songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, will open at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in spring 2027 following its Bristol run.
Taken together, D23 2026 offers a fairly clear snapshot of Disney’s current priorities. The company is not abandoning original storytelling, and projects such as Ghost Market, Gatto, Clay and Hexed suggest its animation studios still understand the need to create characters that could become tomorrow’s franchises. But the centre of gravity remains unmistakably familiar.
Avengers, X-Men, Frozen, The Incredibles, Coco, Lilo & Stitch, Ice Age, Zootopia, Tangled and Star Wars give Disney a release calendar built around names with existing audiences. That reduces some commercial uncertainty, but it also places pressure on each new installment to justify returning to worlds viewers have already visited repeatedly.
D23 is designed for committed fans, so nostalgia and franchise recognition are naturally part of the event’s appeal. The more meaningful test happens outside the Honda Center. Between 2026 and 2029, Disney will find out whether its huge catalogue can continue generating genuine cultural events—or whether projects audiences have never seen before will need to do more of the heavy lifting.
