Jon Favreau, the creative force behind The Mandalorian, unveiled the first look at his next Disney+ project, showcasing the logo, images, and footage for the upcoming series. The reveal came at D23, where the company previews its biggest slate of upcoming film and television projects. Rather than building something brand-new, like Pixar's Gatto, Favreau is turning to one of Walt Disney's own earliest creations, a character almost 100 years old. Despite that pedigree, the project looks made for a young audience, adding more of Disney's original, foundational IP into the Disney+ catalog.
That character is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and this new series, simply titled Oswald, is a return to the spotlight for the forgotten cartoon. It's easy to see why Jon Favreau was the man for the job: beyond Star Wars, he directed Disney's live-action The Jungle Book and The Lion King, both natural fits for this style of streaming project.
The three-episode Disney+ miniseries blends live-action with hand-drawn 2D animation, following three middle schoolers after an earthquake frees Oswald from decades of hiding. Favreau writes, directs, and executive-produces, while animator Sergio Pablos (Klaus) shapes Oswald's hand-drawn look.
A young trio of actors (Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Ryder Allen, and Mykal-Michelle Harris) is joined by Amy Sedaris, along with Kathryn Hahn, Al Madrigal, Steve Martin, and Bernell Pesino. Oswald premieres on Disney+ on February 17, 2027, timed almost exactly to the character's 100th anniversary.
What's wild to think is that Disney wouldn't have been able to celebrate this achievement if it weren't for a strange deal 20 years ago. Walt Disney created the character in 1927, only to lose the rights to Universal in a contract dispute the following year; this is what pushed him to create Mickey Mouse instead.
Oswald stayed lost for nearly 80 years, until a one-of-a-kind trade in 2006. Disney CEO Bob Iger agreed to release ESPN's sportscaster Al Michaels from his contract so the broadcaster could jump to NBC for Sunday Night Football, and NBC Universal handed the rights to Oswald back to Disney in return.
The exclusive footage from D23 was a clever piece of craft in its own right, shown exclusively to the audience but later shared online by audience members.
It opened with what looked like an ordinary tour through the Walt Disney Archives until a tiny figure appeared, peeking around a doorframe: Oswald, fully 3D-animated, black-and-white, and dropped into the real-world setting.
He runs without making a sound from room to room, wide-eyed and cautious, staying out of sight of any humans around the office building.
Eventually, he wanders into an old illustration office, where a bottle of black ink catches his eye, seemingly a nod to the product that created him. He then moves to another table, where he accidentally sets a zoetrope spinning.
The flickering image inside is a clown with a large, uvula-exposing grin, sending a panicking Oswald to a nearby piano.
Scrambling across the keys while trying not to make a sound, he unintentionally hits out a few notes of "When You Wish Upon a Star," a small touch that shows how deep this series plans to dig into Disney history and lore.
It's also Oswald's first real leading role in decades, having debuted in the six-minute short Trolley Troubles on September 5, 1927.
His next-biggest role came in 2010's Epic Mickey, a video game in which he was cast as the self-appointed ruler of Wasteland, a forgotten realm built by the sorcerer Yen Sid to house cartoon characters nobody remembers anymore.
Oswald spends the game fighting Mickey after a monster called the Shadow Blot wrecks his kingdom and turns his girlfriend, Ortensia, to stone. The two eventually patch things up, which is a surprisingly meta bit of storytelling for a kids' Wii game.
His only somewhat notable screen time came in the 2010s Mickey Mouse animated shorts, the Paul Rudish-directed series that ran on Disney Channel from 2013 to 2019, where he popped up in a few cameos.
The most notable came in the episode "Canned," a background gag where Oswald himself gets swept out with the trash.
Disney+'s Oswald is the first time in nearly a century that Oswald has had the spotlight all to himself. More than that, though, this is a look at what could have been for Oswald, a character so essential to the Disney story yet not as beloved as the other cartoon characters.
The Future of Disney Animation
Disney, the same company that once let its first star slip away, has come a long way over decades of iconic animated storytelling; and it's still trying to capture the hearts and minds of young viewers heading into the year 2030.
In typical modern fashion, Disney Animation has a slate of sequels and originals alike: the witchy coming-of-age story Hexed (November 25), Frozen 3 (November 24, 2027), the Kieran Culkin-led oddity Clay (November 2028), and both Zootopia 3 and Frozen 4 down the line.
Notably, Moana 3 will make Moana only the second theatrical trilogy Disney Animation has produced in its 103-year history, joining Frozen 3.
Still, the studio's most obvious breadwinner remains untouched: a true, big-budget 3D Mickey Mouse movie. Many speculated for years that it's a billion-dollar release just sitting there waiting to happen, but Disney has never truly hinted at one.
If Disney were ever to go down that road, it could follow the blueprint that Universal Pictures and Illumination have set with the Super Mario films. It's even possible that re-introducing a historic character like Oswald might even make this theoretical Mickey movie more a possibility down the road.
