Disney December Deluge

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Disney December Deluge

Sat, 12/12/2020 - 15:05
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It’s no secret that Disney is one of the largest entertainment studios in the industry. Disney has recently announced a massive amount of new shows and projects during its 2020 Investor Day on Dec. 10.

On the Marvel side of things, we got to see trailers for several projects we were already privy to such as WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki (in which he apparently goes through space and time and was also D.B. Cooper?) and the animated What If? series which is based on a series of comics that posited alternative scenarios to stories people knew.

Among some new announcements on the Marvel side, we have Hawkeye coming in late Fall 2021; a series based on Ironheart, a female successor to Iron Man; Armor Wars, which will star Don Cheadle’s War Machine and is undoubtedly following the comic storyline about various villains and rogue agents having Iron Man’s tech.

We also have information on a Samuel L. Jackson led project called Secret Invasion, as well as casting updates for She-Hulk, Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel. There is also news of a Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, possibly in the same vein as the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special, that will film alongside the third film in that series. And a series of short films starring the character Groot.

As for Marvel’s movie slate, Black Panther 2 will not recast the late Chadwick Boseman and is instead going to focus on exploring Wakanda. A third Ant-Man film, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is in the works and it was revealed that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will tie into both WandaVision and Marvel’s third Spider-Man movie. A new Fantastic Four movie is also in the works.

For animation, Pixar has Luca, Lightyear (a Buzz Lightyear origin story) and Turning Red. Pixar will also have a series of Disney Plus projects including: Spark-Shorts, Pixar Popcorn, Dug Days, A Cars series and Win or Lose.

Disney Animation is working on several projects including Raya and the Last Dragon, Baymax!, Zootopia Plus, Tiana, a Moana series, Encanto and Iwaju.

In Star Wars news, several Disney Plus series have been announced, including spin-offs of the Mandalorian (yes, a season 2 review is coming): Ahsoka and Rangers of the New Republic.

A new animated spin-off of The Clone Wars, Star Wars: The Bad Batch. And announcements for Star Wars: Andor, The Acolyte, Obi-Wan Kenobi, A Droid Story, Star Wars: Lando and Star Wars: Visions, with movie announcement for Rogue Squadron and a currently unknown Taika Waititi project.

So quite a number of project, some of these are due out next year, while others will be released in 2022 and 2023.

What is probably most entertaining to me about all of this, is that now the TV and movies for both Star Wars and Marvel reflect the experience of being a fan before their Disney acquisitions. You see, with Marvel, and comic in general, you have probably around 50 books running at the same time and there is a lot of editorial management for all that continuity to make sure things line up. Star Wars was the same way before Disney bought it. EVERYTHING was canon pre-Disney. Movies, comics, games, novels, although the pre-Disney expanded universe was a bit messier than Marvel was as far as continuity is concerned.

Thankfully, you’ll probably not have to watch everything to enjoy everything. Aside from the Avengers movies, Marvel has been good at preventing continuity lockout. And Star Wars was always supposed to be like an old serial that you missed the previous episodes and just stepped right into it.

While the above list seems ominous and cyclopean, after a year like 2020, we could all use some escapism.