Disney Confirms New Hand-Drawn Series for Character Who Pre-Dates Mickey From Marvel/Star Wars Favorite
Hand-drawn animation has become something of an endangered art inside Walt Disney Studios, a company that built an empire on the art form. The media conglomerate has occasionally revisited the medium through shorts like the celebratory Once Upon a Studio, but its storied feature films and recent streaming projects have continued moving further toward computer animation, live-action remakes, and, recently, even TikTok. That makes its latest return to traditional animation especially intriguing, because it is being led by one of the company’s most technologically adventurous filmmakers. The Disney Legend has already left his fingerprints across Marvel, Star Wars, and several of the studio’s biggest hits of the modern era. Now, the multi-hyphenate maestro is looking to connect the company’s past, present, and future in one project that started its journey over a century ago, crafting an unexpected venture that bridges decades of studio history. The result could finally return one of Walt Disney’s foundational creations to his rightful spotlight.
Director Jon Favreau confirmed at D23 that Oswald will be a three-part miniseries slated for release in February 2027. The hybrid live action and animated show will feature Oswald the Lucky Rabbit brought to life through traditional hand-drawn techniques by veteran Disney artists that Favreau recruited back to the company. They aren’t the only Disney vets the Jungle Book director has convinced to join the project. In addition to Kathryn Hahn, Amy Sedaris, and Al Madrigal, the show will also feature former longtime Disney cast member Steve Martin.
The Favreau-created series is expected to take Oswald from the page into the real world and to the happiest place on Earth. Our first look at the lucky rabbit shows him exploring the art supplies on Walt Disney’s desk, identifiable by the Coast Guard bell his secretary used to alert him to take lunch. Steve Martin also revealed on a recent podcast that his scenes were filmed at Disneyland’s Main Street Magic Shop, where he worked when he was 15 years old, raising the likelihood that he is playing himself.
An Ink & Paint Homecoming
Created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks for Universal, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was one of Disney’s first successful animated characters before Walt lost control of him in 1928. Oswald would remain abandoned at Universal for the better part of 80 years until Bob Iger made a famously unusual deal to get him back. In 2006, ESPN, a subsidiary of the company, released broadcaster Al Michaels from his contract to join NBC’s football programming in exchange for both the rights to the character and his original shorts. Since then, Oswald has appeared in the videogame Epic Mickey and its sequels, plenty of merchandise, and a one-minute short in 2022. For a character so important to Disney history, his screen time has remained surprisingly limited.
Favreau may be the Disney filmmaker best suited to correct that. Much like Walt, he remains fascinated by how technology can be used for better storytelling. Disney already helped perfect the live-action and animation hybrid with projects ranging from Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks through Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers. Meanwhile, Favreau has been building a relationship spanning over two decades with Industrial Light and Magic starting on Iron Man, through Jungle Book and Lion King, and most recently The Mandalorian, where he helped shepherd the virtual-production technology behind The Volume, but also championed old-school stop motion techniques when possible. A hand-drawn Oswald interacting with the real world feels like a natural fit for a filmmaker uniquely qualified to understand a century of Disney’s cinematic experimentation. Not since the Warner brothers and the warner sister ran amok on the WB lot have we been this excited about a company’s lost character being unleashed on the world.
