Disney thrills fans at D23 with 'Incredibles 3' announcement, footage from 'Moana 2'

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Disney teased its upcoming movies and television series including “Moana 2” in a rousing showcase featuring sneak peaks, live performances and surprise appearances from actors including Dwayne Johnson, Zoe Saldaña and Jude Law.

Fans at Disney’s D23 convention welcomed CEO Bob Iger with a standing ovation Friday at the top of the showcase. “The world needs to be entertained maybe even more so now than ever before and we take that responsibility seriously,” he said before presentations teased new movies in the “Avatar,” “Toy Story” and “Incredibles” franchises.

In the evening’s first surprise, Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson of “Moana” jolted the crowd of over 15,000 at the Honda Center with a performance of a song featuring drummers and dancers in costumes styled after the beloved animated movie.

The actors are reprising their roles as Moana and Maui, respectively, in “Moana 2,” which is set to hit theaters Nov. 27. Before showing an extended sneak peek of the film, Johnson said that working on the films has been special to him, noting that his daughters, who are 6 and 8 years old, were in the crowd.

Disney subsequently released the film’s first full-length trailer online. The footage introduces characters new (Moana now has a little sister) and familiar, like her pet pig Pua and the Kakamora, a band of dart-blowing coconut-clad pirates.

Johnson also announced that he’d be continuing his long-running work on Disney projects to create a “Monster Jam” live-action movie. The studio did not announce any updates to Johnson’s other Disney project, the live-action “Moana,” that is in development.

Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni teased the May 2026 Star Wars film “The Mandalorian & Grogu,” which they said only started filming recently. Favreau said he felt compelled to “put something together” for the showcase and showed a brief clip featuring the title characters, as he put it, “on a whole new journey.”

Law spoke about “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew,” announcing it will be coming to Disney+ on Dec. 3.

“I fell in love with 'Star Wars’ when I was a 10-year-old boy,” Law said before sharing footage from the show, which has been billed as a coming-of-age tale.

Pixar Animation Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter announced the studio is developing a third “The Incredibles” movie, with Brad Bird returning as director.

“Toy Story 5” director Andrew Stanton said it'll be toys versus tech in the summer 2026 film featuring Woody, Buzz and the rest of the crew.

Jennifer Lee, the chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios, shared concept art from “Frozen III” that features Anna, Elsa and Olaf looking onto the horizon with an ominous creature lurking close behind them. The film will arrive in 2027.

Director James Cameron and actors Zoe Saldaña and Sam Worthington reunited on stage to announce the official title of the third “Avatar” movie: “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”

“The new film is not what you expect, but it’s definitely what you want,” said Cameron, who will be bestowed “Disney Legends” status in a ceremony to close out D23 on Sunday.

Fans got a look at “Zootopia 2,” coming to theaters November 2025. The film’s star Ginnifer Goodwin also announced Ke Huy Quan will be joining the cast as a snake.

Following the blitz of announcements from Marvel at Comic-Con International, the studio's president Kevin Feige came out after a welcome video from Ryan Reynolds, who thanked the crowd for supporting his box office record-breaking “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

Ryan Coogler, the director of the “Black Panther” movies, joined Feige to discuss “Ironheart," starring Dominique Thorne and Anthony Ramos. The cast introduced a first look at the series that follows Thorne’s character, Riri Williams, who was first introduced in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”

Feige also spoke about “Marvel’s first family,” the Fantastic Four. Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach said hello to the audience in a short video clip in their costumes from the set in the U.K., where filming began late last month.

Fans also got a glimpse of the first look at “Daredevil: Born Again,” set to start streaming on Disney+ in March. Feige said the new series will channel the essence of the Netflix original, with Charlie Cox reprising his role as Matt Murdock, but will also set the characters on a new path. A second season is in the works.

Music will be a key part of “Mufasa: The Lion King,” the upcoming prequel to the 2019 photo-realistic film, a remake of the 1994 animated classic. Director Barry Jenkins and Lin-Manuel Miranda, who created original music for the new movie, introduced a clip featuring a new song, “I Always Wanted a Brother,” which depicts the early relationship between Mufasa and Scar.

Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot took to the stage to promote their live-action “Snow White” movie, which is scheduled for March 2025. Zegler plays the original Disney princess and “Wonder Woman” Gadot plays the evil queen. The film will feature new songs from duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, known for “La La Land” and “Dear Evan Hansen.”

Jared Leto and Jeff Bridges took to the stage to promote “Tron: Ares,” which will be scored by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' Nine Inch Nails.

Kathryn Hahn performed a new song from her upcoming Marvel series “Agatha All Along,” another earworm for fans of the 2021 “WandaVision” musical number. She praised the songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, who wrote the hit song from “WandaVision” that the series is named after and previously penned hits from “Frozen” and “Coco."

Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan announced the official title for the highly anticipated “Freaky Friday” sequel, “Freakier Friday.”

Curtis, who will be honored as a Disney Legend on Sunday, said she felt like no time had passed since they filmed the 2003 movie as they shared the first images from the new film.

Docter also announced an original Pixar film, “Hoppers,” starring Bobby Moynihan and Jon Hamm, and shared exclusive looks at upcoming film “Elio.” The young star of “Elio,” Yonas Kibreab, brought Saldaña back onstage and announced her as a lead character, joining America Ferrera and Jameela Jamil in the cast. The movie will hit theaters in June 2025.

Pixar will also have two new series hitting Disney+ in a first for the studio. Following the record-breaking success of “Inside Out 2,” the studio is creating “Dream Productions,” a show set in between “Inside Out” and “Inside Out 2,” that will start streaming on Disney+ in 2025. “Win or Lose,” the first Pixar longform series, will hit Disney+ Dec. 6.

This image released by Walt Disney Animation Studios shows a scene from "Moana 2," expected in theaters November 2024. (Walt Disney Animation Studios via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are drifting near their records Monday as Wall Street gears up for the most anticipated meeting of the Federal Reserve in years.

The S&P 500 was 0.2% lower in midday trading after flitting between gains and losses earlier in the morning. It's sitting just 0.9% below its all-time high set in July.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 83 points, or 0.2%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, after climbing above its record closing high earlier in the day. The Nasdaq composite was down 0.7%.

Oracle rose 5.4% to help lead the market, continuing a strong run that began last week with a better-than-expected profit report. Alcoa also jumped 9% after saying it would sell its ownership stake in a Saudi Arabian joint venture to Saudi Arabian Mining Co. for $950 million in stock and $150 million in cash. But drops for some influential Big Tech stocks dragged on indexes, including declines of 2.8% for Apple and 1.9% for Nvidia.

Treasury yields eased in the bond market ahead of what’s expected to be the week’s main event. On Wednesday, the widespread expectation is for the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate for the first time in more than four years to deliver some relief to the economy.

The only question is by how much the Fed will cut. Traders are shifting more bets toward a larger-than-usual move of half a percentage point, according to data from CME Group. They’re anticipating a 61% chance the Fed will go beyond the more traditional cut of a quarter of a percentage point. That’s up from 50% on Friday and just 30% a week ago.

The difference between a half-point cut and a quarter may sound academic, but it can have far-ranging effects. While lowering rates relieves pressure on the economy, it can also give inflation more fuel.

The Federal Reserve has been keeping its main interest rate at a two-decade high in hopes of slowing the economy enough to stifle high inflation. With inflation having eased substantially from its peak two summers ago, the Fed has said it can turn more focus to bolstering the slowing job market and economy. Some critics say it may be moving too late, increasing the risk of a possible recession.

A Fed cut of half a percentage point would likely be the best case for the stock market in the very short term, according to Michael Wilson and other strategists at Morgan Stanley. But that's only if the Fed can convince investors it's not getting forced into a bigger-than-usual cut because of worries about a recession, among other factors.

Still, the more important thing for where stocks are heading over the next three to six months will be how well the job market holds up, according to Wilson. If employment weakens, stocks could fall regardless of whether the Fed cuts by half or a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 3.63% from 3.66% late Friday. The two-year yield, which moves more closely with expectations for the Fed, eased to 3.55% from 3.59%.

That was despite a report in the morning showing manufacturing in New York state returned to growth in September. That surprised economists, who were expecting another month of contraction for an area of the economy that’s been hit hard by high interest rates.

On Wall Street, Carl Icahn's Icahn Enterprises rose 7.1% after it said a U.S. judge dismissed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the company, one based on allegations by a research firm that looks for financial irregularities and tries to profit when the stock prices fall.

Fertilizer producer Mosaic fell 4.8% after it said electrical equipment failures at mines and Hurricane Francine will reduce its production of potash and phosphate in the current quarter.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed amid mostly modest movements across Europe and Asia. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.3% after data released over the weekend showed China’s economy slowed further in August.

Markets in Japan, mainland China and South Korea were closed for holidays.

AP Writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed.

FILE - The American flag hangs from the front of the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 10, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

FILE - A currency trader passes by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

FILE - A person looks at an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm in Tokyo, on Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)