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Disney closed out its D23 fan convention in Anaheim with a lengthy Entertainment Showcase at the Honda Center, hosted by Zootopia 2 stars Ginnifer Goodwin and Ke Huy Quan and opened by chief executive Josh D'Amaro. Running well over two hours, the presentation ranged across the company's full portfolio – from theme parks to Pixar and Walt Disney Animation – but it was the Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm segments that generated the most attention from those following along, delivering a string of casting reveals, trailers and release dates that had been anticipated for months.

On the Marvel side, studio boss Kevin Feige used the stage to confirm the long-rumoured cast for the studio's X-Men reboot, bringing out performers including Adam Driver, cast as the villain Mr Sinister, and Inde Navarrete as Rogue, alongside actors taking on Cyclops, Storm and Professor X. The panel also offered a fresh look at this year's Avengers: Doomsday, focusing on Doctor Doom and hinting at the character's backstory, and unveiled the first trailer for VisionQuest, the follow-up to WandaVision. That footage centred on Paul Bettany's Vision grappling with the fallout of his escape from Westview, and showed James Spader reprising Ultron largely in human form rather than as the robotic villain, with only brief glimpses of his mechanical alter ego.

Lucasfilm's contribution was led by president Dave Filoni, who brought Ahsoka stars Rosario Dawson, Hayden Christensen and Eman Esfandi on stage to premiere the season two teaser and confirm its return to Disney+ on 20 January 2027. The trailer reportedly features Clone Wars-era flashbacks involving Christensen's Anakin Skywalker and shows Grand Admiral Thrawn, played by Lars Mikkelsen, moving to open hostilities against the Rebel Alliance. Director Shawn Levy and star Ryan Gosling also appeared to promote Star Wars: Starfighter, revealing its official logo ahead of a cinema release next May; a teaser for the film was shown only to those inside the room rather than released publicly. Elsewhere at the convention, the Lucasfilm pavilion displayed costumes and props from the Ahsoka series and from The Mandalorian and Grogu, including armour worn by Pedro Pascal's Din Djarin and a maquette of Rotta the Hutt.

Coverage of the event varied in focus. Outlets running live blogs treated the X-Men casting and the Ahsoka and Starfighter reveals as the clear headline moments of the night. A more analytical piece framed this year's showcase against a harder backdrop for Disney than in 2019, pointing to the underwhelming box-office performance of The Mandalorian and Grogu and the live-action Moana, a new chief executive in D'Amaro, and broader uncertainty about the company's direction, even as it noted successes such as Toy Story 5. Disney's own official recap, by contrast, emphasised D'Amaro's opening remarks about the company's global fan connection and the breadth of the showcase across its studios, giving comparatively less prominence to the individual Marvel and Star Wars reveals than the entertainment press did. A Star Wars-focused report placed particular emphasis on the pavilion's costume and prop displays, detail largely absent from the other accounts.

Where outlets differ

Convention/entertainment outlets led with the concrete reveals (X-Men cast, Ahsoka trailer, Starfighter logo) as the night's biggest news, largely via live-blog style coverage.

One outlet framed the showcase within a sceptical assessment of Disney's broader business position in 2026 (new CEO, underperforming Mandalorian & Grogu and live-action Moana, competitive pressure from YouTube), a context not mentioned by the others.

Disney's own official write-up focused heavily on CEO Josh D'Amaro's opening speech about fan connection and the event's scale, giving less specific detail on individual Marvel/Star Wars announcements than outside coverage.

Only the Star Wars-specific source detailed the Lucasfilm pavilion's costume and prop displays (Ahsoka Season 2 costumes, Mandalorian and Grogu armour, Rotta the Hutt maquette); other sources did not mention these physical exhibits.

Accounts differ slightly on emphasis for VisionQuest and Avengers: Doomsday, with one source giving more detail on the human-form depiction of Ultron and Vision than others, which mentioned the trailer only briefly.

• www.gamesradar.com
• www.polygon.com
• thewaltdisneycompany.com
• www.starwars.com