Disney drops all the news

And the trailer for this year's Best Pic fav

What to know

• Top Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and theme parks news and trailers from D23… Disney held its annual fan convention this weekend and released all of the news. All of it. Here are the headlines that stood out to me, but this is by no means a complete list:

  • Inside Out 2 is coming summer 2024… And while Amy Poehler is returning, Bill Hader and Mindy Kaling won’t be after reportedly only being offered 2% of what Poehler was making ($100k vs $5M). Yikes. 😮

  • Pixar announces Elio… “About an 11-year-old boy who finds himself transported across the galaxy and is mistaken for the intergalactic Ambassador for Earth.” Sounds fun! 🌎

  • Ariana DeBose to lead Disney Animation’s Wish… About the Disney “wishing star,” which is a thing I guess? Watch DeBose sing the big ballad from the movie, written by Julia Michaels. Disney Animation also unveiled its new streaming series Iwájú, “a pan-African sci-fi series,” set in a futuristic Lagos. ⭐️

  • Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Wyatt Russell to lead Marvel’s Thunderbolts… The full team for Thunderbolts is here and it’s star-studded. Marvel knows it’s got some dynamite performers here and is leaning into them. ⚡️

  • High School Musical series to include High School Musical movie reboot… Sounds like they’re doing the Curb Your Enthusiasm Seinfeld reunion season! 🎭

  • Eman Esfandi is playing live-action Ezra Bridger in Ahsoka… Great casting, he looks just like him. 🐋

  • Josh Groban, Josh Henry, Rita Morena join ABC’s live Beauty and the Beast… Love me some Josh Henry. 🦁

  • Will Forte to lead Pixar’s first Disney+ long-form series… Love me some Will Forte. ⚾️

  • New Marvel ride at Disneyland will feature a “King Thanos who won”… That’s a frightening prospect. 👑

  • Trailers: Disenchanted, The Little Mermaid, Marvel’s Werewolf by Night, The Mandalorian s3, Marvel’s Secret Invasion, American Born Chinese, The Santa Clauses, National Treasure: Edge of History, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Willow. ▶️

  • Trailer and footage descriptions: Haunted Mansion, Mufasa: The Lion King, Indiana Jones 5, Marvel’s Echo. 👂

• Spielberg’s The Fabelmans wows Toronto, could be Best Picture frontrunner… Is the next Best Picture here and could it be as simple as Steven Spielberg’s sentimental review of his own childhood? It appears so! The hype is real. Watch the trailer below. 🎞

• Glass Onion slays at TIFF, should be Netflix’s Best Picture contender, says Variety… The Knives Out sequel wowed critics, garnering 89% on RottenTomatoes currently. Sadly the rest of us won’t get to see it until December 23. 🧅

• The Handmaid’s Tale to end with season six… I gave up after the premiere of season two, but I’m sure there are fans out there bummed by this news. 📺

• Wendell and Wild might be headed for Best Animated Feature race… The Henry Selick, Key & Peele film impressed at TIFF and Variety is on it. 😈

• Netflix might back off binge releases… Yup, staggered or weekly episode drops help build buzz, and Netflix needs all the buzz it can get right now. 🍿

• Paper Girls has been canceled at Amazon… I watched the first two episodes, couldn’t get into it. 🗞

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What’s new

• The Emmys — Sept 12 | Award show on NBC

• Atlanta s4 — Sept 15 | FX/Hulu comedy series | 🍅

• Los Espookys s2 — Sept 16 | HBO comedy series | 🍅

• The Woman King — Sept 16 | Drama in theaters | 🍅 100%

• See How They Run — Sept 16 | Comedy thriller in theaters | 🍅 73%

• Confess, Fletch — Sept 16 | Comedy in theaters and VOD | 🍅 100%

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What to watch

Trailer: The Fabelmans — Nov 11 in theaters

Directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Spielberg and Tony Kushner, starring Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Gabriel LaBelle, Mateo Zoryna Francis-Deford, and Judd Hirsch.

If the trailer is getting me all misty, what’s the movie going to be like?! Despite coming in late to the auteur nostalgia genre (as defined by Licorice Pizza, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Apollo 10 1/2, Roma, and Belfast), The Fabelmans already appears to be at the top of the heap. Steven Spielberg’s movies have always felt wistful, thanks to his generous use of light and his fascination with childhood wonderment, but here he’s turning up the wistfulness with full throated intention and it’s devastating (in a good way). Should we be wary by how meta and potentially preachy this all is? The man who made generations fall in love with the movies is apparently giving us a story directly about falling in love with the movies, telling us how powerful they are. If he can deliver on showing us the power of movies through this family story (he’s done it many times before), there will be nothing to worry about. Earnest is the word that comes to mind here, leave your cynicism at the cineplex door this Thanksgiving.

For all past ‘what to watch’ recommendations, see the full list here!