Once the public face of squeaky-clean, harmless family entertainment, the Walt Disney Corporation has evolved into a widespread conglomerate known as much for the properties it controls as the films it produces. With subsidiaries including Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, National Geographic, A&E, 20th Century Fox, ESPN, Hulu, and Pixar, Disney has a commanding control of some of the world’s most lucrative franchises, plus an extensive library of film and TV classics. Its streaming service Disney+ signals a new interest in controlling its own online distribution, setting aside decades of licensing partnerships. Follow along with The Verge as we look at Disney’s new films and shows, and its strategies for dominating the box office and the streaming dollar.
In celebration of National Deaf History Month, Disney has reanimated three songs — Frozen 2’s “The Next Right Thing,” Encanto’s “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” and “Beyond” from Moana 2 — into American Sign Language. The full reimagined musical sequences are coming to Disney Plus on April 27th.
It was already exciting enough to know that Ryan Coogler was working on an X-Files revival, but The Wrap reports that he is also set to produce a new Animorphs reboot for Disney Plus.
It didn’t take long for the latest Disney Imagineering innovation to freeze up (hah) and fall backwards in front of a small crowd of children at Disneyland Paris. Even his magnetically attached carrot nose decided to “Let It Go.”
Though Disney almost put an end toMarvel’s Wonder Man series before it got a chance to stream, the studio is bringing it back for another season according to Variety.
After being removed last month the HDR format and 3D movies are once again available to Disney Plus Premium subscribers in Europe, although some German users are still reporting them missing. Disney confirmed to FlatpanelsHD the removal was a result of a “German patent dispute with American company InterDigital.”
[FlatpanelsHD]
Now that Andor has come to end, series creator Tony Gilroy is free to speak more openly about what it was like working for Disney, and in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter he says that the studio was very insistent on him not using the word “fascism” while talking about his show focused on fighting fascism.
[The Hollywood Reporter]
The latest trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu really highlights how very, very young Grogu still is for one of Yoda’s species, which makes it seem that much more absurd that Din Djarin still hasn’t found his son a helmet to protect that (presumably) soft head.
In a cease and desist letter, Disney includes examples of the new Seedance 2.0 model making videos featuring characters like Spider-Man and Darth Vader, according to Axios. “ByteDance is hijacking Disney’s characters by reproducing, distributing, and creating derivative works featuring those characters,” Disney’s attorney said.
Disney Plus subscribers in a few European countries have spotted that Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and 3D content have disappeared from the service. A Disney statement blames it on “technical challenges,” but FlatpanelsHD points out it may be linked to a patent dispute in Germany.
Just before kickoff, Disney and Pixar previewed their next CG family flick, Hoppers. As we’ve heard and seen in a teaser trailer, this one follows a world where people put their minds into 3D-printed versions of animals to try and live among them. It’s coming to theaters on March 6th, although the YouTube description mentions an early viewing window on February 28th.
Todd Harthan and Todd Helbing have joined the series as co-showrunners and executive producers, along with Marc Webb and Rachel Moore as executive producers, as Variety reports. Author Christopher Paolini will also be executive producing the adaptation of his YA fantasy series at Disney Plus, which is also home to the hit adaptation of Percy Jackson.
Disney’s deal with OpenAI includes a plan to allow Sora users to create 30-second clips featuring over 250 Disney characters while some will appear in curated vertical video feeds inside Disney Plus, CEO Bob Iger told investors on Monday. Iger said the feature could arrive “sometime in fiscal 2026,” adding the company hopes to allow Disney Plus subscribers to create them directly on its platform:
What this deal does is by giving us the ability to curate what has been basically created by Sora onto Disney, is it jumpstarts our ability to have short form video on Disney Plus.
Current CEO Bob Iger has apparently said he plans to step down before the end of the year, and the company’s board of directors are set to vote next week on who should be his successor, The Wall Street Journal reports. The frontrunners are reportedly Josh D’Amaro and Dana Walden.
[The Wall Street Journal]
Disney Plus is teasing Jessica Jones’ return to the MCU in this new teaser trailer for Daredevil: Born Again’s upcoming second season, and it looks like the detective is going to be knocking heads.
While the new trailer for Disney Plus’ Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord series doesn’t at all make the Sith Lord look like a heroic figure, it does suggest that meeting his new apprentice is going to reveal new things about his character when the show premieres on April 6th.
Ahead of debuting a trailer for its new Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord animated series tomorrow, Disney Plus has shared a short (and inky) teaser that makes it seem like the Sith Lord’s lightsaber is going to be seeing plenty of action.
Personally, I don’t have superhero movie fatigue. The powers aren’t the problem; I just think we need a little more comedy and a little less fate-of-the-world drama! This one is Wonder Man, an 8-episode miniseries coming January 27th to Disney Plus. It’s meta in more ways than one.
Meta had already announced the streaming service was coming to its headsets, but now it’s here.
Disney Plus is about to become filled with uninspired garbage.
Jeff Williams, who recently retired from Apple, will stand for election “as a new independent director at the company’s 2026 annual meeting of shareholders,” Disney says. The board will be expanded to 11 members.
[The Walt Disney Company]
Alongside the unveiling of the very impressive self-walking Olaf character coming to Disney’s Frozen world attractions in Paris and Hong Kong next year, Disney takes us on a behind the scenes look at its research and development efforts, showing how reinforcement learning combined with simulation is dramatically accelerating robot development.
Here’s a couple of facts for you, apropos of nothing: it has been less than a decade since Moana hit US theaters, and not even 12 months since Moana 2 followed it. And yet, here we are.
sam flynn:
The live-action remakes will continue until morale improves
Get the day’s best comment and more in my free newsletter, The Verge Daily.
The concept of a live-action Moana adaptation feels pretty premature until you remember that the original animated movie came out almost a decade ago. The new movie hits theaters on July 10, 2026.
During an earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the company isn’t “trying to break any new ground” on a deal that would end the ESPN blackout:
The deal that we have proposed is equal to or better than what other large distributors have already agreed to... While we’ve been working tirelessly to close this deal and restore our channels to the platform, it’s also imperative that we make sure that we agree to a deal that reflects the value that we deliver.
The streaming service grew to 59.3 million subscribers in the US and Canada just months after pausing production of Kimmel’s late-night talk show and announcing a price hike, according to its Q4 2025 earnings report.
Disney also plans to make more changes to its streaming service soon, with a new “visually engaging homepage and greater personalization.”
