Anaheim turned into a hype machine over the weekend as Disney rolled out its three-day D23 fan expo, and this year the stakes felt higher than usual. With a new CEO in former parks chief Josh D’Amaro, a billion-dollar hit in Toy Story 5, and a looming Disney Plus/Hulu consolidation, the company used the stage to answer one question: what comes next?
For gamers, the biggest jolt came from Square Enix. A fresh 90-second Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer revealed a brand-new world based on Pixar’s Coco, complete with Miguel and Hector rendered close to their film likenesses and Sora sporting Día de Muertos face paint. Sora fights off Heartless Shadows with a Coco-themed keyblade built from guitars, sugar skulls, bones and marigolds, before teaming up with Miguel and Hector in battle. The game got a 2027 release date, tying neatly into the franchise’s 25th anniversary that year. And after a quarter-century of waiting, Disney confirmed a Kingdom Hearts anime is coming to Disney Plus.
Marvel came loaded. Studios president Kevin Feige unveiled the all-new X-Men cast, confirming the actors stepping into Cyclops, Storm, Professor X, Rogue and more under Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier, alongside a release date. Fans also got a new two-minute Avengers: Doomsday trailer — the same cut shown at San Diego Comic-Con’s Hall H — featuring Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) and Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) reckoning with Doctor Doom, who swats Thor aside and revives a small army of broken Sentinels.
Then there’s VisionQuest, the closer to the trilogy that began with WandaVision. Its first trailer showed Paul Bettany’s Vision going through some serious stuff, leaning heavily on human avatar forms — including James Spader’s Ultron, who looks exactly like James Spader.
The Star Wars slate got attention too. Ahsoka season 2 arrived with a teaser and a firm return date of Jan. 20, 2027 on Disney Plus, picking up Rosario Dawson’s former Jedi and the threats facing the New Republic. Meanwhile, The Mandalorian and Grogu — after a July digital release and a 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray release — starts streaming on Disney Plus on Sept. 2.
Not everything was blasters and keyblades. Disney also dropped a teaser for its feature-length Bluey movie, giving the Heeler family their first big-screen look. The jump to 3D is immediately noticeable, but Bluey and Bingo still move and behave exactly like themselves — which should please both the kids and the parents routinely wrecked by Chilli and Bandit.
Between the mutant reboot, Doom’s power flex, and a Pixar-flavored Kingdom Hearts, D23 2026 delivered plenty to chew on. Whether it’s enough to steady a mega-corp facing an uncertain future is another story — but for one weekend, the reveals did their job.
