It was D23 this weekend! That means news about all things Disney, including a peek at projects from Pixar and Disney Animation. Here’s a rundown of what we learned about all of Disney’s animated endeavors.
Elemental is an upcoming Pixar film set in a city where fire-, water-, land- and air-residents live together. The two main characters are a young fire-elemental named Ember and a water-elemental named Wade and the story is inspired by immigrants pursuing dreams in beautiful neighborhoods where language and cultures come together. We got a still from the film for our enjoyment (see above), and the film will premiere on June 16, 2023.
Win or Lose is Pixar’s first series and follows the Pickles, a co-ed middle school softball team, in the week leading up to their championship game. Each episode takes place that same week, highlighting the perspective of a different main character—players, their parents, the umpire—each reflected in a unique visual style. Directors Carrie Hobson and Michael Yates revealed that Will Forte will voice Coach Dan and we got some key art for the show. I’m a big Will Forte fan and am curious to see how Pixar approaches the series format—we’ll have to wait until Fall 2023, however, to see the show on Disney+.
We also got our first news about Pixar’s Elio. Here’s that film’s official synopsis: “11-year-old dreamer Elio is artistic, creative and an avid INdoorsman who finds it hard to fit in. Meanwhile Mom Olga, who runs a top-secret military project, is working to decode a strange signal from outer space. But it’s Elio who makes contact, gets beamed into space and is subsequently mistaken for an intergalactic Ambassador for Earth.”
The movie will come out in Spring 2024 with America Ferrera voicing Olga and Yonas Kibreab voicing Elio.
An Inside Out 2 is also in the works! It will again focus on the emotions of Riley, who is now a teenager. The voice of Joy, Amy Poehler, announced the news at D23, though we’ll have to wait until its premiere in Summer 2024 to see how Joy, Sadness, Anger, and Disgust deal with puberty.
Disney Animation had their own animated projects to announce. First up was Iwájú, a original long-form series created in collaboration with Pan-African comic book entertainment company Kugali. Directors Olufikayo (Ziki) Adeola, Hamid Ibrahim, and Tolu Olowofoyeku described the series as a love-letter to Lagos, Nigeria, and said that it’s a coming-of-age story for Tola, a young heiress from the wealthy island, and her best friend Kole, a self-taught tech expert and loving son from the mainland. The series will come to Disney+ sometime in 2023.
Strange World, Disney Animation’s upcoming feature set to premiere in theaters on November 23, 2022, screened a trailer for the D23 audience that sadly hasn’t been made public yet. We did get the screen image above and the news that it is “about an incredible family who must get past their differences to save a strange world full of danger and surprises.” It features the voice talents of Jake Gyllenhaal (Searcher Clade), Dennis Quaid (Jaeger Clade), unparalleled Twitter artist Jaboukie Young-White (Ethan Clade), Lucy Liu (Callisto Mal), and Gabrielle Union (Meridian).
Last and very likely least, we also found out about Disney Animation’s new feature, Wish. The movie comes from the question no one but Disney Marketing has asked: “How did the wishing star, upon which so many characters wished, come to be?” The movie is set to come out in Fall 2023 and centers around a girl named Asha who wishes upon a star and gets a “ball of boundless energy” named Star to go with her on adventures. It will also feature Alan Tudyk voicing a goat named Valentino, so the film has that going for it, at least.
