Thank goodness Deadpool & Wolverine is still in cinemas, or Ryan Reynolds’ sweary mutant might have taken over Disney’s usually squeaky-clean D23 fan event in Anaheim, California. As it was, Reynolds only appeared briefly on the spectacularly giant screens at the 15,000 capacity Honda Centre for a recorded segment thanking fans for supporting his film to a likely $1bn global box office return this weekend. And naturally to remind Marvel boss Kevin Feige – tongue firmly in cheek – who saved the studio.
It was left to Disney’s more conventional franchises across its subdivisions Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and what used to be 20th Century Fox to steal the show. And with a number of new movie announcements and impressive sneak peeks, this was a fan event to suggest the Mouse House has plenty up its sleeve to keep audiences interested over the next few years.
One of Marvel’s most highly-anticipated future episodes is Fantastic Four: First Steps, and attendees were treated to the first footage from Matt Shakman’s film, which seems to be set in an alternate reality 1960s. Imagine if Wes Anderson, in Asteroid City mode, directed a Marvel movie and you might get somewhere close to the look and feel of this one. Stars Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman), Joseph Quinn (Johnny Storm/The Human Torch) and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Ben Grimm/Thing) look a cut above previous incumbents from earlier, misguided attempts to bring Marvel’s first family to multiplexes, while the fuzzy, Apollo-era vibes hint at a big screen take on WandaVision’s eccentric retro-futurism. The movie has just started production in the UK, and is due out next year.
Marvel boss Kevin Feige also treated attendees to an in-depth look at the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World, which seems to tease the arrival of the X-Men in the main MCU. The plot appears to centre around the discovery in a remote ocean of the element adamantium, famously the incredibly hard metal from which Wolverine’s claws are made in the comics. Harrison Ford takes over the role of General Thaddeus E “Thunderbolt” Ross from the late William Hurt in Julian Onah’s film, and there were gasps at the end of a segment of footage as the character transformed into a version of the legendary Red Hulk (with Ford’s face!)
Over in the former Fox corner of the Disney universe, James Cameron took to the stage to reveal that the new Avatar movie will be titled Avatar: Fire & Ash. The Canadian film-maker is determined to show us every mystical, photo-real corner of the cosmic moon Pandora, and this time it looks like we’ll be meeting a new tribe of Na’avi with flamey crests on their heads (though these might well be head-dresses). Footage was limited, but Cameron will be hoping to repeat the achievements of the original Avatar (from 2009) and its 2022 sequel Avatar: The Way of Water, which between them have taken more than $5bn at the global box office, and opened up the prospect of their creator making these movies well into the 23rd century. The new episode is due to hit multiplexes in December 2025.
Still basking in the remarkable box office success of Inside Out 2 (now the highest-grossing animated film of all time), Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter revealed that studio stalwart Andrew Stanton will direct the forthcoming Toy Story 5, the fourth sequel to the 1995 film that singlehandedly transformed the world of animation with its all-CGI approach. The new episode will focus on a battle for supremacy between Woody, Buzz et al and a new tech-based rival for the affections of the children who play with them. Perhaps a baddie from the video game Fortnite, or the nefarious Captain iPad, will be centre stage this time around. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Stanton is best known for directing Finding Nemo from 2003, its 2016 sequel Finding Dory and the wonderful Wall-E in 2008. He has co-written all four of the earlier Toy Story films, and will be regarded as an incredibly safe pair of hands for the new instalment. Docter also revealed that a third movie in the much-loved The Incredibles series about a family of superheroes has been greenlit, with Brad Bird (who else?) once again at the helm. Docter also showcased exclusive footage from the upcoming film Elio, about a young space fanatic who is beamed up to the cosmos and ends up being mistaken for Earth’s leader by an alien organisation known as the Communiverse, which sounds like precisely the sort of thing that Donald Trump invented Space Force to try and eliminate.
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The D23 fan event is never complete without a Star Wars update, and the big news this time around was an exclusive first peek at the much-anticipated debut big screen outing for The Mandalorian and Grogu, which was introduced by director Jon Favreau and writer Dave Filoni. There were audible gasps in the audience as Star Wars Rebels’ pointy-eared Zeb made his first live action appearance, but rather less excitement at the prospect of Babu Frick (from 2019 entry The Rise of Skywalker) lining up alongside Baby Yoda. At one point, a planet that looked a lot like the ice world Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back made it into frame, while there were flickers of mini and giant AT-ATs. The sight of Grogu in his Mandalorian Beskar armour, meanwhile, almost had some fans passing out from the excitement.
It’s hard to know at this longstanding corporate event whether attendees are just into literally anything with Disney written on it; they even cheered the studio’s chief executive officer Bob Iger as if he had just handed them all $10,000 each. Likewise, Tron Ares star Jared Leto was greeted with the kind of rapture you might have expected him to have received back in 2013, when he had just won an Oscar for a startling performance in Dallas Buyers Club, even though he has really done very little to deserve such garlands since. But it might just be worth reserving judgment on Tron: footage suggests the new episode will see the lightcycle-riding digital baddies entering the real world, which is at least a fresh approach, and one that plays on Hollywood’s ongoing fascination with everything nefarious AI. First introduced in 1982, when the original film marked an early use of CGI graphics, this sci-fi saga ought to be perfect for the Disney machine, if only the studio can get it right. That did not happen with 2010’s undercooked Tron: Legacy, despite that episode boasting music from Daft Punk and Jeff Bridges returning from the first film.
Ares boasts tunes from Nine Inch Nails, while Bridges (also in attendance at D23, though looking slightly baffled as to how he got there) is back again. Hopefully this time he won’t look so much like a CGI Jedi Knight moonlighting at a techno rave. Director Joseph Kosinski also returns after taking charge of Legacy, but with Top Gun: Maverick in his back pocket since that bloodless effort, Disney clearly trusts him to make sure the Master Control Program is operating on full power mode this time around.