In their annual investor conference Thursday night, Disney revealed all the ways they’re going to make a ton of money. They are going to make so much money! And they’re going to do this by accelerating the same plan they’ve been doing for years now: bleeding dry as many brands as they can.
Growing closer and closer to its comic book inspiration, Marvel will explode in its abundance of needless spinoffs, specials, sequels, and interconnectedness. Here’s what’s new there:
- Armor Wars – Don Cheadle’s Rhodey is getting a Disney+ series where he tries to stop bad guys from getting Tony Stark’s suit technology. Finally, War Machine will have his own every Iron Man movie.
- Ironheart – Another Iron Man spinoff! This one follows Riri Williams (to be played by Dominique Thorne) a young genius who also invents an Iron Man-style suit. While flying, super-powered exoskeletons are a long way from becoming reality, they are very near to becoming the primary subject of all entertainment.
- Baby Groot – If Grogu has a series, why not the original cute-but-gross earth-toned infant with a cartoon caveman name? This will in fact be a cartoon.
- Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special – Written and directed by James Gunn, Christmas 2022 will see a Guardians special that will presumably lean further into the goofiness of the “Inferno” music video, but who knows. Maybe this will be a very serious discussion where Chris Pratt breaks character to make Rocket accept Christ.
- Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, and What If…? – We already knew about these, but now we know they are respectively hitting Disney+ in March, May, and “summer.” And we will begrudgingly recap them, as if we care what the bird man and metal-arm man are doing. They should start a Hall & Oates-style two-piece and that should be the end of it.
- She-Hulk – It’s now confirmed that Tatiana Maslany will star in the title role. Mark Ruffalo will also appear, and Tim Roth will reprise his role as Abomination, that classic villain we all love and definitely remember from the Edward Norton movie.
- Secret Invasion – Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury and Ben Mendelsohn’s Talos will lead a series loosely based on the Secret Invasion comics, wherein the shapeshifting Skrulls infiltrated some high-level roles. And remember that part in Captain Marvel where Fury weirdly checks out the dead Skrull’s dick on the autopsy table? Well, he can’t stop thinking about it, and that is the secret invasion going on in his mind.
- Fantastic Four – Spider-Man series director Jon Watts is going to bring his talent at making a third reboot attempt work to a Fantastic Four movie. We are never going to get Cop Car 2: Another Cop Car.
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – That is the official name of the latest Ant-Man/Wasp joint. Jonathan Majors has been confirmed to play villain Kang the Conqueror, and it seems Scott Lang’s daughter may have a larger role: she’ll now be played by Freaky‘s Kathryn Newton. Sorry, whoever was playing Cassie Lang before.
- Captain Marvel 2 – In addition to getting her own series, Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) will appear in the Captain Marvel sequel—as will second Captain Marvel (in the comics) Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris). Marvel’s third Spider-Man has set the precedent that every movie now needs to include a minimum three versions of the superhero.
- Thor: Love and Thunder – Remember how Christian Bale was cast in this? Well, he’s playing the villain Gorr the God Butcher. The character is spiteful and murderous toward gods. He is not, like, a god-tier butcher, if that’s what you were thinking. His actual butcher skills are probably not anything special.
- Black Panther 2 – Marvel isn’t re-casting the late Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa, instead shifting focus to other Wakandan characters. So, sorry: not this time, Michael Gambon.
Meanwhile, on the Lucasfilm side of things…
- Indiana Jones – They’re seriously going to make Harrison Ford do another one, with plans to release a fifth chapter in 2022, when Ford is 80. They claim this will be the final film in the franchise, but yeah, we’ve heard that shit before. Harrison, please next crash your plane into Walt Disney Studios.
- Star Wars: Andor – That’s the title of the Diego Luna-led series about Cassian Andor. In a weird way, it sort of makes sense.
- Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi – That’s the title of Ewan McGregor’s show about ol’ Ben Kenobi. Hayden Christensen has also made time from his packed schedule to appear in it.
- Lando – Calrissian will come back again in a Disney+ “event series” from Dear White People director Jason Simien. It’s unclear if Billy Dee Williams, Donald Glover, or someone else will be in the title role. Maybe all three! Into the Lando-verse, motherfuckers.
- The Acolyte – From Russian Doll co-creator Leslye Headland, this matryoshka of endlessly smaller Star Wars within Star Wars is “a mystery thriller that will take us into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emergent dark side powers in the final days of the High Republic era.” Hope it has spaceships!
- Star Wars: Ahsoka – Someone saw the bland writing and wooden performance from Rosario Dawson on The Mandalorian and thought, “We need at least ten more episodes of this.”
- Star Wars: Rangers of the New Republic – Another Mandalorian spinoff, and you just know it’s going to be about those goddamn Rebel cops.
- Star Wars: Rogue Squadron – AHHHHHHHHHHHHH JUST STOP!!!!!!!!!!
- Sorry, so Star Wars: Rogue Squadron – Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins is making a Star Wars movie about the Rogue Squadron. The role of a man named Wedge is now the hottest part in Hollywood.
- Star Wars: Porkins – A weekly half-hour of Rebel pilot Jek Tono Porkins just absolutely going to town on lunch meat. I may have dreamed this one, but we’ll keep it.
- Star Wars: Visions – Speaking of visions, there’s also a Star Wars show titled that. It will be a series of anime shorts that you will be strapped to a gurney and forced to watch.
- Star Wars: A Droid Story – A new series in which we see that R2-D2 and C-3PO are back again, the fuckers.
Disney hasn’t forgotten their old bread and butter, though. There’s a bunch of animated stuff in the works too:
- Lightyear – Continuing to tarnish the perfection of what was once a beautifully tight trilogy, Toy Story‘s origins will be explored with a Buzz Lightyear prequel. Here’s Chris Evans to clarify:
OHHHHHHH, so that makes sense then. It’s plainly apparent why that pitch could not be ignored. It’s Buzz Lightyear THE MAN.
- Turning Red – A Pixar film about a nerdy 13-year-old girl who turns into a big red panda when overly excited. Thanks, but it was cooler when it was a big red car in Turbo Teen.
- Tiana – Princess Tiana from The Princess and the Frog is getting a Disney+ series to delve into just how many amphibians she’s explored sexually.
- Moana – A series. About Moana. What do you want?
- Encanto – A Colombia-set animated feature about a magical family living in a magical home. The downside is that they are cursed with the original songs of Lin-Manuel Miranda.
- Iwájú – Disney+ is getting an animated sci-fi series with a title that translates to “front” in the African language Yoruba, just as shareholders have long demanded.
- Zootopia+ – A series to continue Disney and Apple TV’s bullshit of appending a plus sign to names, like that’s a thing.
- Baymax: The Series – Proof that Baymax is the Joey to Big Hero 6‘s Friends.
- Dug Days – The dog from Up got a series! Who is this guy’s fucking agent!?
- Win or Lose – Pixar’s first animated series focuses on middle school softball team trying to inevitably wring a few cheap tears out of us.
- Cars – Of course there’s going to be a Cars series. Dane Cook as a seaplane wasn’t enough of a Hell for this franchise to crash us full-speed into.
- Ice Age: Adventures of Buck Wild – Oh, right, Disney owns Fox now, so in addition to all their bullshit with Josh Gad’s snowman, we also have to see Simon Pegg’s trash-looking weasel thing continue on with his crap. We have 2.3 million people in prison and Buck Wild runs free to get his own show. Disgusting.
- Luca – A Pixar film about an Italian boy named Luca, who presumably goes on to direct a lovely little romance where Armie Hammer fucks a twink.
AND THAT’S NOT ALL!
- Sister Act 3 – Whoopi Goldberg is confirmed to return for an incredibly belated follow-up to Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. Your move, Miss Congeniality.
- The Mighty Ducks – Emilio Estevez returns for a contemporary series reboot in which it’s now just sort of sad that a losing youth hockey team names themselves after an incredibly successful NHL franchise.
- Hocus Pocus 2 – As Space Jam: A New Legacy has proven, a mid-90s kiddie movie doesn’t have to be any good to warrant a nostalgic sequel.
- Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers – A CG-meets-live-action feature that—hold up!—is actually fairly promising. Akiva Schaffer is directing, with fellow Lonely Islander Andy Samberg as Dale, John Mulaney as Chip, and Seth Rogen in for a cameo. Also in the works is a Chip ‘n Dale animated series that is not as promising, because it will not get us horny for a photorealistic Gadget.
- Disenchanted – Amy Adams is officially set to return for a Disney+ Enchanted sequel in which a disenchanted Giselle must come to terms with Patrick Dempsey’s post-Grey’s Anatomy career.
ALSO!
- Alien – Fargo and Legion creator Noah Hawley will bring FX and Hulu a series based on Alien, and it’s like, how did no one think to do anything with Alien yet!?
- Will Smith and Chris Hemsworth will each star in their own shows for National Geographic, and it really feels like Disney is just doing this to justify having National Geographic featured so prominently on the Disney+ banner. It clearly wasn’t up to snuff with all their major brand content, so now they’re going to toss a couple big-name bones that way. Smith’s series, Welcome to Earth (cute), sees him “embark on an awe-inspiring journey to unlock the secrets of this planet’s most extraordinary, unexplained phenomena.” As if we needed him of all people delving into more alien scams. Hemsworth’s show, Limitless, will explore the limits of the human body. And, uh, hasn’t he already been doing that?
- It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – Get ready to see the gang turn 50, because It’s Always Sunny will follow its yet-to-be-shot fifteenth season with at least three more. Cool but please stop making us consider Danny DeVito’s mortality.
- Disney+ – The price is going up a buck. You’re welcome, fuckers. Gotta pay for a show about the dog from a 2009 Ed Asner movie somehow.
