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All Upcoming Disney Movies: New Disney Live-Action, Animation, Pixar, 20th Century, And Searchlight

Walt Disney Studios is betting big on nostalgia with Moana 2, Zootopia 2, Toy Story 5 and Frozen 3.

by and | August 14, 2024 | Comments

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UPDATED: August 14, 2024

The upcoming slate of Walt Disney Pictures titles will bring a lot of familiarity: A live-action Snow White, the sequel film Moana 2 and the prequel title Mufasa: The Lion King, which is director Barry Jenkins’ take on the feuding brothers Mufasa and Scar before scion Simba joined the pride.

But there are also titles like the Pixar animated film Elio and Timothée Chalamet’s long-shelved Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown (formerly known as Going Electric) from Searchlight Pictures.

Below, we’ve gathered details for some of the Disney and Disney-associated films that are expected to hit in the next few years. We’ll add to this list as more information becomes available, especially in regard to the speculation Pixar movies still waiting release dates.

Upcoming Marvel Movies | Best Disney+ Series | Most Anticipated Movies of 2024


Upcoming Premieres

Below, you’ll find the Disney-produced projects that have locked release dates – for now. Expect some of the dates to shift as announcements are made. We’ll keep this list updated so you’re always on top of what’s coming up. We’ve also noted which of these are 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures releases.


(20th Century Studios)
Release Date: August 16, 2024
Director: Fede Álvarez
Starring: Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced

The Hollywood Reporter broke the news in March 2022 that Álvarez, who worked on 2013’s remake of Evil Dead and 2015’s Don’t Breathe, will write and direct the film. Variety reported in 2023 that this film will take place between the events of 1979’s Alien and 1986’s Aliens. Ridley Scott, who directed the original 1979 movie, will produce.



(Hulu)
Release Date: August 23, 2024
Director: Tina Mabry
Starring: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Sanaa Lathan, Uzo Aduba

The film follows three friends who call themselves The Supremes. For decades, the group has weathered life’s storms together through marriage and children, happiness and blues. Now, as heartbreak and illness stir up the past and threaten to destroy their friendship, the trio sees their bond put to the test as they go through their most challenging times yet.


Elton John: Never Too Late (Disney+)
Release Date: September 6, 2024
Director: R. J. Cutler, David Furnish
Starring: Elton John

Once titled Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, this is a documentary film about the musician’s final tour.


Hold Your Breath (Hulu)
Release Date: October 3, 2024
Director: Karrie Crouse, Will Joines
Starring: Sarah Paulson, Annaleigh Ashford, Ebon Moss-Bachrach

This period-set psychological thriller is about a young mother living in 1930s Oklahoma who becomes convinced that there’s something sinister lurking in the area’s dust storms.



(Searchlight Pictures)
Release Date: November 1, 2024
Director:  Jesse Eisenberg
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin

Eisenberg wrote, directs and stars (with Culkin) in this Sundance darling about cousins who travel to Europe after their grandparent’s passing and end up joining a Holocaust tour.




Release Date: November 27, 2024
Director: David G. Derrick Jr.
Starring: Auliʻi Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson

Cravalho’s Moana (and Maui, voiced by Dwayne Johnson) head off on a new adventure into dangerous, long-lost waters when she receives a message from her ancestors. Moana also has to brace herself for another new challenge: being a big sister.


(Searchlight Pictures)
Release Date: December 6, 2024
Director: Marielle Heller
Starring: Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy

A horror-comedy about a woman who gets more than she bargained for when she pauses her career to be a stay-at-home mom.




Release Date: December 20, 2024
Director: Barry Jenkins
Starring: Aaron Pierre, Kelvin Harrison Jr.

Director Jenkins and writer Jeff Nathanson’s live-action prequel to the events of the film The Lion King gives some backstory to feuding brothers Mufasa (Aaron Pierre) and Scar (Kelvin Harrison Jr.). Returning cast members from the 2019 live-action version of the story include Seth Rogen as Pumbaa, Billy Eichner as Timon and John Kani as Rafiki.



(Searchlight Pictures)
Release Date: December 25, 2024
Director: James Mangold
Starring: Timothée Chalamet

Tangled up in Chalamet? Mr. Tambourine Mangold? The Ford v. Ferrari director and Dune star have long been attached to this biopic about folk music legend Bob Dylan, with the singer attached to produce. Once titled Going Electric, the film also stars Elle Fanning and Monica Barbaro.




Release Date: March 21, 2025
Director: Marc Webb
Starring: Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, Martin Klebba, Andrew Burnap

After falling asleep for several years, the live-action remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves has risen with West Side Story’s Zegler set to lead and Gadot as the evil queen. Greta Gerwig and Erin Cressida Wilson wrote the script for the film, which will be directed by Webb (500 Days of Summer, The Amazing Spider-Man).


The Amateur (20th Century Studios)
Release Date: April 11, 2025
Director: James Hawes
Starring: Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan

Malek plays a CIA cryptographer who loses his wife in a terrorist attack. When his bosses won’t catch the perpetrators, he forces them to teach him how to do it. The story is based on the 1981 Robert Littell novel.


ELIO pixar


Release Date: June 13, 2025
Director: Adrian Molina
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, America Ferrera

This Pixar movie is about an 11-year-old boy who doesn’t fit in at home. By accident, he ends up traveling through space to become some aliens’ ambassador for Earth.


 

Image from Tron: Ares (2025)


Release Date: October 10, 2025
Director: Joachim Rønning
Starring: Jared Leto

Per Walt Disney Pictures, the film follows “a highly sophisticated program, Ares, who is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind’s first encounter with A.I. beings.”


 

zootopia

Zootopia 2
Release Date: November 26, 2025

Director: Jared Bush
Starring: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman

Goodwin returns to voice rabbit Judy Hopps and Bateman returns to voice fox Nick Wilde. Ke Huy Quan joins the cast as Gary the snake.



Release Date: December 19, 2025
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, CCH Pounder, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, Michelle Yeoh, David Thewlis, Oona Chaplin

The third chapter in James Cameron’s epic space-nature adventure continues to follow Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and their family as they navigate Pandora and attempt to elude Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and his military forces.


Ella McCay (20th Century Studios)
Release Date: TBD 2025
Director: James L. Brooks
Starring: Emma Mackey

Sex Education alum Mackey stars as a young politico hoping for a work-life balance when she becomes governor of her state. Woody Harrelson, Ayo Edebiri, Kumail Nanjiani, Jack Lowden, Rebecca Hall, Jamie Lee Curtis and Albert Brooks also star.


(Photo by Andrew Eccles/Disney)

Freakier Friday
Release Date: TBD 2025
Director: Nisha Ganatra
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan

The sequel that everyone kept asking for will arrive sometime in 2025, with Curtis and Lohan reprising their (albeit older and maybe wiser now) roles as mother-daughter body switchers. Lohan’s character now also has her own snarky daughter as well as a soon-to-be stepdaughter. What could possibly happen?



Live-Action Lilo & Stitch (Disney+)
Release Date: TBD 2025
Director: Dean Fleischer-Camp
Starring: Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders

After languishing in various stages of development, it was announced in 2022 that Marcel the Shell with Shoes On director Dean Fleischer-Camp would helm this live-action take on the animated musical about a Hawaiian orphan and her newfound best friend: an alien who crash-landed on the island. The film will be released on Disney+ with a cast that includes Kealoha as Lilo Pelekai and Lilo & Stitch creator Sanders as the voice of Stitch. Other cast members include Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Kaipot Dudoit, Zach Galifianakis, Billy Magnussen, Tia Carrere and Courtney B. Vance.


Swiped (Hulu)
Release Date: TBD 2025
Director: Rachel Lee Goldenberg
Starring: Lily James

James as Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd in this biopic directed by Unpregnant’s Goldenberg. Set to air on Hulu in 2025, the cast also includes Ben Schnetzer, Ian Colletti, Mary Neely, Ana Yi Puig, Aidan Laprete, Pedro Correa, Coral Peña and Hunter Sansone.


Hoppers (Pixar)
Release Date: March 6, 2026
Director: Daniel Chong
Starring: Piper Curda, Jon Hamm, Bobby Moynihan

Announced at the August 2024 D23 Expo, the film focuses on a girl who can transfer her mind into a robot beaver with the intention of going undercover in the animal kingdom. She soon befriends a “regal beaver” played by Moynihan. With the other animals, they band to fend off the plans of a greedy mayor voiced by Hamm.


 

Walt Disney Studios

Toy Story 5 (Pixar)
Release Date: June 19, 2026
Director: Andrew Stanton, McKenna Jean Harris
Starring: TBD

The toys face their scariest foe yet … technology.


 

Live-Action Moana
Release Date: July 10, 2026
Director: Thomas Kail
Starring: Dwayne Johnson

This is a live-action take on the 2016 blockbuster about a Polynesian princess who (reluctantly) teams with the demigod-with-a-God-complex Maui on a mission to save her people. Johnson is welcomed back to play Maui and Hamilton director Thomas Kail will helm this film. Catherine Laga’aia replaces Auli’i Cravalho in the titular role.


 

Frozen III
Release Date: November 24, 2027
Director: TBD
Starring: TBD

Disney’s not letting go of the blockbuster franchise about two royal sisters, one blessed with magical powers and one not so much, who must routinely find ways to save their village. Details are still scarce, but Walt Disney Animation chief creative officer Jennifer Lee shared concept art at the August 2024 D23 Expo that she said “captures the seeds of their next epic adventure.”

A fourth Frozen film is also said to be in the works.


Avatar 4 (20th Century Studios)
Release Date: December 21, 2029
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana

Details are still TBD.


Avatar 5 (20th Century Studios)
Release Date: December 19, 2031
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana

Details are still TBD.


Awaiting Premiere Dates

Below are projects that have been announced, are in some state of development – we define “stalled” as a state of development – and whose dates we’re still awaiting.

For more info on upcoming Marvel films without release dates, check our our full list of upcoming Marvel movies.


9 to 5 Remake (20th Century Studios)
Director: TBD
Starring: TBD

What a way to make a livin’. Variety reported in 2024 that Jennifer Aniston’s Echo Films was producing a remake of the 1980 office satire that starred Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton.


29 Dates
Director: Richard Wong
Starring: TBD

This young adult rom-com, which is based on the Melissa de la Cruz novel, will appear on Disney+. While no cast or writer has been announced, we know that this story centers on a 16-year-old Korean exchange student who meets a host of eligible bachelors from around the globe. It has been compared to author Jenny Han’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before series.


Again Again Again (Searchlight Pictures)
Director: TBD
Starring: Joel Kim Booster

Deadline reported in 2024 that Fire Island’s Booster wrote this script, which is about a man of honor whose attempts to keep his best friend’s wedding on track go off the rails when his boyfriend shows up and causes drama.


 

Aladdin Spin-Off
Director: TBD
Starring: Billy Magnussen

The Hollywood Reporter reported in 2019 that Disney had hired Jordan Dunn and Michael Kvamme to write a spin-off of its live-action version of Aladdin that would focus on Magnussen’s smarmy Prince Anders. Magnussen will reprise his role in the film. He told Entertainment Tonight in 2024 that the project was still happening, but was pushed due to delays from the COVID-19 shutdown and SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.


Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip (Disney+)
Director: Marvin Lemus
Starring: Thom Nemer, Eva Longoria, Jesse Garcia, Cheech Marin

Just when you thought the day couldn’t be any more terrible, horrible, no good, very bad …

A sequel to the 2014 comedy, which itself is based on the Judith Viorst book, will premiere on Disney+.


Alvin Ailey Biopic (Searchlight Pictures)
Director: Barry Jenkins
Starring: TBD

Deadline reported in 2019 that Moonlight director Jenkins was developing an as-yet-to-be-titled biopic about the famed choreographer.


Live-Action The Aristocats
Director: Questlove
Starring: TBD

Not to be confused with the Paul Provenza comedy documentary The Aristocrats, this film will be a live-action reimagining of the 1970 film about Parisian cats who suddenly learn they have inherited a fortune from their owner. Deadline reported in 2022 that Will Gluck and Keith Bunin were writing the script.


(Photo by Walt Disney Pictures)

Live-Action Bambi
Director: TBD
Starring: TBD

Although long in the works, the film lost director Sarah Polley in 2024. It’s also already seen backfire from conservatives who bristled when one of its screenwriters, Lindsey Anderson Beer, suggested today’s kids haven’t seen the film as much as previous generations because [spoiler] it showed Bambi’s mom’s death and that her take “did give a little bit more of a scope to it.”


Beach Read (20th Century Studios)
Director: Yulin Kuang
Starring: TBD

Based on Emily Henry’s best-selling novel, this rom-com follows two authors who agree to swap aesthetics (she to write the Great American Novel; him to write a book with a perfect happy ending) and end up falling in love.


Bomb (20th Century Studios)
Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: TBD

Deadline reported in 2023 that there was an explosion of offers for this project, which is based on Kevin McMullin’s short story about a hostage negotiator who gets called into work the night before his wedding.


Buster Keaton in Go West

Buster Keaton Biopic (20th Century Studios)
Director: James Mangold
Starring: TBD

Deadline reported in 2022 that Mangold was developing a film based on Marion Meade’s book, Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase. However, Deadline then reported in 2023 that Warner Bros. TV was making a biographical series with Rami Malek set to star as the silent film star.


Club 33
Director: TBD
Starring: TBD

Can’t get a reservation at Disneyland’s exclusive restaurant? Buy a movie ticket. The Hollywood Reproter reported in 2024 that Shawn Levy, Dan Levine and Dan Cohen’s 21 Laps Entertainment was developing a story set at the club that was in the vein of whodunnit comedies like Clue (apropos, as frequent 21 Laps collaborator Ryan Reynolds may have lost his chance to star in a remake of that Tim Curry classic).


Emma Stone in Cruella

Cruella 2
Director: Craig Gillespie
Starring: Emma Stone

Soon after the 2021 release of Disney’s villain origin story, Cruella, news broke that a sequel was in early development. Variety reported at the time that director Craig Gillespie and screenwriter Tony McNamara were expected to return. A couple months later, Deadline confirmed that Emma Stone had a deal to be in the second film.

Stone told Variety in 2024 that the project is a “work in progress” and that it will come together “hopefully sooner rather than later.”


Flight of the Navigator
Director: Bryce Dallas Howard
Starring: TBD

Actor-director Howard is remaking the 1986 sci-fi adventure movie for Disney+, switching the lead from a 12-year-old boy who goes missing and reappears eight years later to a female character. A release date is still unknown. Howard told the Los Angeles Times in 2022 that “there’s not a script yet.”


 

Free Guy

 

Free Guy 2
Director: Shawn Levy
Starring: Ryan Reynolds

Star Reynolds Tweeted soon after Free Guy’s summer 2021 premiere that Disney would be interested in doing a second film. What that film would look is still TBD, as returning director Levy told Collider in 2023 that the script was being retooled because it was too similar to box office smash Barbie. He further sunk the idea in a 2024 interview with The Hollywood Reporter where he said “we’ve worked for two years on ideas and scripts” and that “I’m less certain now … [W]e’re really proud of the movie and we don’t need to make sequels. If we don’t crack a story that feels very worth making, we’d rather just make a different movie.”


Deliver Me from Nowhere (20th Century Studios)
Director: Scott Cooper
Starring: Jeremy Allen White

The Bear star will play Bruce Springsteen in this biographical film about the making of the musician’s Nebraska album. Odessa Young and Paul Walter Hauser also star.


Eenie Meanie (20th Century Studios)
Director: Shawn Simmons
Starring: Samara Weaving, Karl Glusman

Written and directed by Simmons, this heist film stars Weaving as (according to Deadline) “a former teenage getaway driver who is dragged back into her unsavory past when a former employer offers her a chance to save the life of her chronically unreliable ex-boyfriend.”


In the Blink of an Eye (Searchlight Pictures)
Director: Andrew Stanton
Starring: Kate McKinnon, Rashida Jones, Daveed Diggs

This sci-fi drama that interconnects three stories exploring the history of the world is said to be premiering soon on Hulu.


 

Incredibles 3 (Pixar)
Director: Brad Bird
Starring: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter

The third film in the franchise was announced at the August 2024 D23 Expo.


Hercules (1997)

Live-Action Hercules
Director: Guy Ritchie
Starring: TBD

It was first announced in 2020 with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings writer Dave Callaham handling the script and Avengers filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo producing.

Joe Russo told Variety in 2022 that this film will be “a little bit more experimental in tone, a little bit more experimental in execution.”

Ritchie, who directed 2019’s live-action take on Aladdin, is reportedly still helming this project, although rumors circulated in early 2024 that he’d left the film. As of April 2024, the producers said they were “still waiting on a script.”


 

 

Kingsman 3 (20th Century Studios)
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Starring: Taron Egerton, Colin Firth

Speaking with Collider in 2024, franchise director and co-writer Vaughn said that it’s all about finishing the script. “Act Three is being written. Act Two needs some work, right? And so we know how it ends, we know how it begins,” he said of the project that was being called Kingman: The Blue Blood. In the interview, he also (maybe?) joked that he needed the production to start before his stars got too old for these roles.


Untitled Majorettes Movie (20th Century Studios)
Director: TBD
Starring: H.E.R.

Deadline reported in 2024 that musician H.E.R. was re-teaming with The Color Purple producers Harpo Films and Scott Sanders Productions on this dance movie about an introvert ballerina who joins a dance squad at a HBCU. Lauren Ashley Smith (A Black Lady Sketch Show) was writing the script.


 

 

Monster Jam
Director: TBD
Starring: TBD

A live-action film set in the world of the world of motorsports, Dwayne Johnson announced the project, and his involvement in it, at the August 2024 D23 Expo (although what exactly that involvement is is still TBD).

“I’m a pickup truck man. I love motor sports. I love monster trucks. And I thought we had an opportunity here to create something interactive and fun and live action from the POV of these monsters trucks and their eccentric and crazy drivers,” Johnson said at the D23 announcement.


O’Dessa (Searchlight Pictures)
Director: Geremy Jasper
Starring: Sadie Sink

Jasper wrote and directed the rock opera, which stars Stranger Things breakout Sink as a small-town girl hoping to recover a cherished family heirloom. Kelly Macdonald, Mark Boone Junior, Regina Hall, Murray Bartlett and Kelvin Harrison Jr. also star.


Perfect (Searchlight Pictures)
Director: Olivia Wilde
Starring: Thomasin McKenzie, Mckenna Grace

Wilde is set to direct the biopic about Kerri Strug, the Olympic gold medalist who famously fought a painful injury to bring her team to victory. However, she told Variety in 2022 that she was pushing back the start of production to concentrate on her children.


Rental Family (Searchlight Pictures)
Director: Hikari
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Mari Yamamoto, Takehiro Hira, Akira Emoto

According to Variety, the film follows a “down-and-out actor living in Tokyo who is hired as a token American guy for a Japanese rental family company providing professional stand-in services.”


The Return of the Rocketeer (Disney+)
Director: TBD
Starring: David Oyelowo

After some false starts, a live-action remake of the 1991 film The Rocketeer is in the works with David Oyelowo on board as an executive producer and lead. The Wrap reported in 2023 that Sylvie’s Love filmmaker Eugene Ashe would write the script. The film would air on Disney+.


The Roses (Searchlight Pictures)
Director: Jay Roach
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman

Deadline reports that this film, a reimagining of the Michael Douglas-Kathleen Turner marriage comedy The War of the Roses, looks at how little it takes for a “façade of the perfect family” to implode once the husband’s “professional dreams come crashing down.”


Shrunk
Director: Joe Johnston
Starring: Rick Moranis, Josh Gad

A follow-up to the Honey, I Shrunk The Kids franchise familiar to late Gen Xers and older Millennials, the film will focus on Gad’s Nick Szalinski — son of Moranis’ Wayne from the original film series — who continues with his dad’s size-changing experiments. It will air on Disney+, although “when” is still a big TBD.

Gad Tweeted in 2023 that “a lot of u ask me what’s going on with this film. Truth is, we were inches from starting and then COVID hit, inches from starting again & then my schedule exploded with conflicts, inches from starting again & budget got the best of us. If you want it, let your local @disney know.”


(Photo by 20th Century Fox Films)

The Simpsons Movie 2 (20th Century Studios)
Director: TBD
Starring: TBD

Comic Book Guy — and other Simpsons characters who care about details — would like you to know that the long-awaited second Simpsons movie is a standalone film and not a sequel. At least, that was the word from series producer Al Jean when he was asked about it in 2020.

Jean told ComicBook.com in 2024 that “there’s talk and I think something will happen” and that “it’s tough for the entire animation business right now to know what the best path is. I think we want to see how the animated films do this summer.”


Sister Act 3
Director: TBD
Starring: Whoopi Goldberg

Regina Y. Hicks and Karin Gist have been tapped to write the script for the latest installment in the franchise and Goldberg has stated that she is involved. In 2024, the star reiterated her desire for her costar in 1993’s Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, Sheryl Lee Ralph, to appear in the movie. It will air on Disney+.


Spooked
Director: Peter Foott
Starring: TBD

News came in 2020 that Irish filmmaker Foott was developing a Disney+ supernatural comedy that The Hollywood Reporter says “involves a Halloween night gone awry as trick or treaters are transformed into whatever costume they are wearing.”


Starlight (20th Century Studios)
Director: Joe Cornish
Starring: TBD

Attack the Block’s Joe Cornish is adapting Mark Millar’s comic. According to Deadline, which broke the news, it “centers on a space hero who saved the universe 35 years ago but when he came back to Earth, no one believed his fantastic stories. He married, had kids and settled into old age, but then his old rocket ship shows up, and he is called back for one fantastic adventure.”


Three Men and a Baby
Director:  Mo Marable
Starring: Zac Efron

High School Musical alum Efron will, presumably, be one of the three men (and not the baby) in this remake of the 1980s film about a trio of guys out of their element when one of them unexpectedly becomes a father. Marable is directing, according to Deadline. Disney had planned for the film to be released in 2022 on Disney+.


Tower of Terror
Director: Taika Waititi
Starring: Scarlett Johansson

Another project based on a popular Disney attraction, Black Widow’s Johansson will produce and star in this film according to Collider. Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley will write the script and Waititi is rumored to direct. The project was delayed during Johansson’s lawsuit with Disney over the release of her film, Black Widow and then, again, in 2023, due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. And, as Screenrant points out, her involvement in Jurassic Park 4 will only further push production on this film.


WORKING GIRL, Melanie Griffith, 1988 (20th Century Fox Film Corp.)

Working Girl (20th Century Studios)
Director: TBD
Starring: TBD

Let the river run wild with this one. Selena Gomez is said to be aiding in the adaptation of the 1980s Melanie Griffith film Working Girl — a story of a Manhattan receptionist from Staten Island who should never have been underestimated. Diary of a Future President creator Ilana Pena is writing the new screenplay and Gomez is producing. It’s still unclear as to whether the Only Murders in the Building actress will star in the film.


Thumbnail image: Walt Disney Studios


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