Disney Film at D23 2026: Every First Look
First looks from Friday's Entertainment Showcase, as they land.
Todd Ruffner-Schoenfeld
Editor in chief. A knack for the fine print, and likes it.
D23 2026 opened on Friday night with the Disney Entertainment Showcase at the Honda Center, and it was, as expected, where the movie news broke. Across a single evening Disney laid out first looks and release dates from Walt Disney Animation, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and 20th Century, plus a run of live-action and streaming reveals. Here is every film and animation first look from the showcase, organised by studio, with what was actually confirmed and when each title arrives.
Marvel Studios: Doomsday leads, and the X-Men finally come home
Marvel brought its next event film in finished-enough shape to sell tickets on the spot. Avengers: Doomsday got a special look and a hard date of December 18, 2026, with tickets going on sale the same day. Anthony and Joe Russo are back directing a Marvel film for the first time since Endgame, and the headline is Robert Downey Jr. returning to the universe he launched, this time as Victor von Doom rather than Tony Stark. The cast Disney read out was enormous, pulling in Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, and Chris Hemsworth, Pedro Pascal, Anthony Mackie, Florence Pugh, Vanessa Kirby, and Simu Liu among many others, alongside a new poster.
The bigger long-term news was the X-Men. Marvel confirmed the film is in early development for May 5, 2028, and named its cast: Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, Kit Connor as Scott Summers, Christopher Abbott as Professor Xavier, Samara Weaving as Emma Frost, Inde Navarrette as Rogue, and Maya Boyd as Storm, with Adam Driver announced by video as Nathaniel Milbury. This is the first film to fold Marvel’s mutants fully into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a moment fans have waited for since Disney bought 20th Century Fox in 2019. A VisionQuest series was also dated for October.
Walt Disney Animation: Frozen and Zootopia keep printing
Disney Animation leaned on its two biggest franchises. Frozen 3 is set for November 24, 2027, with Jennifer Lee back directing, the full voice cast returning, and songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez previewing two new songs. New footage teased a villainess whose powers are said to rival Elsa’s, a first for a series that has kept its conflicts personal. Zootopia 3 was confirmed in early development, timed to the franchise’s tenth anniversary this weekend, with Ginnifer Goodwin returning as Judy Hopps and Ke Huy Quan joining as a character named Gary De’Snake. A date will come later.
Pixar: back to the Land of the Dead
Pixar’s night belonged to Coco 2, confirmed for November 2029, nearly twelve years after the original won two Academy Awards and crossed 800 million dollars worldwide. Lee Unkrich returns to direct, with Adrian Molina co-directing, and concept art catches up with Miguel as a teenager. Benjamin Bratt is set to return as Ernesto de la Cruz. Pixar also dated Incredibles 3 for June 16, 2028, covered in our Incredibles 3 first look, and teased two original films, Gatto and Ghost Market.
Lucasfilm: Gosling takes the cockpit
Lucasfilm gave attendees a sizzle reel for Star Wars: Starfighter, arriving May 28, 2027, with Ryan Gosling front and center. Shawn Levy directs and produces from a script by Jonathan Tropper, with Kathleen Kennedy producing. The cast includes Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Amy Adams, and Flynn Gray. Disney confirmed Starfighter is a standalone story rather than a chapter of the Skywalker saga, which gives Levy room to build something new. It is set to be one of the first Star Wars films in theaters in years.
20th Century and live-action: a herd, a blue experiment, and a princess
Ice Age: Boiling Point was dated for February 5, 2027, with John C. Donkin directing and the original voice cast, Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, and Simon Pegg, back in theaters for the first time in a decade. On the live-action side, Lilo & Stitch 2 arrives May 26, 2028, with Chris Sanders directing and voicing Stitch, Maia Kealoha returning as Lilo, production beginning in Hawaii later in 2026, and the reveal teasing Angel, Stitch’s pink counterpart. It follows the studio’s live-action Tangled, dated for 2028.
Streaming and beyond: the rabbit who started it all
Jon Favreau unveiled Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a live-action and animation series arriving on Disney+ on February 17, 2027, with Kathryn Hahn and Albert Brooks in the voice cast. It is a fitting comeback: Oswald was Walt Disney’s first breakout star, created in 1927 a year before Mickey, lost in a 1928 contract dispute, and not returned to Disney until 2006. On Hulu, Disney confirmed a sequel to Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion for 2027, with Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino back and Tim Federle directing. Disney Theatrical also announced a stage musical of The Greatest Showman, opening in spring 2027 in London’s West End.
Decoded: what the slate actually tells you
Step back from the individual reveals and a strategy comes into focus, and it is a cautious one. Of the films Disney put on stage, nearly all are sequels or revivals of things that already worked: Frozen 3, Zootopia 3, Coco 2, Incredibles 3, a live-action Lilo & Stitch 2, a sixth Ice Age, and the return of a character created in 1927 in Oswald. The genuinely original bets were rare and quiet, two unheralded Pixar films in Gatto and Ghost Market, and Lucasfilm’s standalone Starfighter. The single biggest swing was not a new idea at all but a piece of casting: Robert Downey Jr. returning as the villain of the universe he built as its hero.
For a studio that spent the 2010s betting on new worlds, this was a slate built to defend known franchises rather than start new ones. Read charitably, that is discipline in an expensive and uncertain box-office era: Disney is leaning on the properties it is surest of and asking its animation houses to keep two or three tentpole franchises in permanent rotation. Read skeptically, it is a company running low on new ideas and buying safety with nostalgia. The tell will be in the marketing. Watch whether the two small original Pixar films get anything close to the push the sequels do. That, more than any release date announced this weekend, will show how much room Disney actually leaves for the new.
The rest of the weekend
The showcase was only part of D23 2026. For the rides and lands, see our Disney Parks at D23 2026 hub; for the series news, our TV and streaming roundup; and for the weekend’s biggest, quietest, and most surprising moments in one place, our D23 2026, Decoded.
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