A plethora of big reveals are coming out of Disney+ Day, and for fans of The Princess and the Frog comes a first look at the animated series spinoff Tiana. Along with the concept art revealing the titular princess on the run in a green getup comes the reveal that Tiana follows the “newly crowned Princess of Maldonia on a new adventure, but her New Orleans past isn’t far behind.” Take a look at it below.
#Tiana FIRST LOOK Concept Art: The new long-form musical series, directed and written by Stella Meghie (@stellamink), comes to #DisneyPlus in 2023. The series follows newly crowned Princess of Maldonia on a new adventure, but her New Orleans past isn’t far behind 👑#DisneyPlusDaypic.twitter.com/A7simHJfrD
— Disney+ (@disneyplus) November 12, 2021
Tiana is a long-form musical series directed and written by Stella Meghie, who previously directed movies like The Photograph and The Weekend, but makes her animation debut with this project. It has also been announced that Anika Noni Rose will reprise her role as the voice of Tiana for the show, which is great news. The show will launch sometime in 2023 on Disney+ with an official date yet to be announced.
“I want… to see who she becomes,” Rose said of her hopes for Tiana in an ABC Audio interview last year. “She’s an amazing character. And she spoke to a lot of people and she continues to do so, which is a great honor to me… I would want to see where she goes now that she opened her restaurant and she’s gotten her dream and she is a princess.”
She added, “And Naveen found a way by the end of the movie to recognize what was important in his life and make some changes in there. How do they go forward? What do they do? How do they meld those worlds? What is life like in New Orleans? What is life in Maldonia? And how do they continue to invite that magic that they found when they were transformed into their lives?I would love to see all of that.”
Several other new shows are in development at Disney+ which are continuations of popular movies. Coming next year are shows like Baymax! and Zootopia+ with a Moana series coming in 2023. Owen Wilson and Larry the Cable Guy will also reprise the voices of Lightning McQueen and Mater in the Disney+ original series Cars on the Road, a followup to the Cars movies, set to hit the streaming service next year.
It’s perhaps just a matter of time before The Princess and the Frog gets the live-action treatment as well. Disney has been slowly working their way through all of their most popular animated movies with live-action remakes, and while some Disney fans have mixed feelings about them, they’ve been pretty financially successful. For now, the animated Tiana has plenty more left to do with her animated series so that may be why there’s no rush to put The Princess and the Frog into that conversation just yet.
The Princess and the Frog, directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, was released in 2009. It was a hit at the box office and was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Animated Feature. Disney announced last year that the Splash Mountain theme park attraction would be rehauled to be themed as The Princess and the Frog in Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom. Tiana will stream on Disney+ in 2023.
Source: movieweb.com