D23 Expo: 'The Mandalorian' Season 3 Trailer, Extended 'Black Panther' Footage, and More

If you thought there was a lot of excitement after the first studio showcase at D23, you haven't seen anything yet! Sure, getting teasers for Disenchanted and The Little Mermaid and first-look character images from Elemental and Wish is big. But the second studio showcase brought out announcements from Lucasfilm, Marvel Studios, and 20th Century Studios.

Festivities kicked off with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy introducing the company's upcoming slate, starting with Andor, which was originally scheduled to premiere in August on Disney+ but is now scheduled for Sept. 21 (with the first three episodes dropping at once).

Then Marvel took the stage with Kevin Feige (wearing a She-Hulk: Attorney at Law baseball cap, by the way) and a live performance of Rogers: The Musical opening their segment. 20th Century Studios closed out the morning with an exclusive look st Avatar: The Way of Water in 3-D. 

Read on below for all of the tidbits and surprises shared on stage.

Andor

After showing a trailer for the forthcoming Star Wars universe-set series, Kennedy brought out some of the cast, from Cassian Andor himself (Diego Luna) to Genevieve O'Reilly, Kyle Soller, and Adria Arjona. 

Luna reminded the audience that although the show is titled for his character, the show itself is actually about "a whole community reacting" to the politics of their world. Among that community is Mon Mothma, who portrayer O'Reilly noted was "previously a bit of a pillar in the rebellion, this time we get to meet her and explore as a woman trying to navigate the dark shadows of Imperial politics while trying to build a rebellion."

Meanwhile, Soller plays a character "everyone loves to hate," said Kennedy, and Arjona is Bix, who has a past with Cassian that will prove to be a great source of drama as the episodes unfold.

"When you meet them you can sort of feel that there's trust that's been broken [but] years of friendship. She continues to help him, sometimes at her own detriment...So it's complicated," Arjona said.

Disney+ and Lucasfilm released the final trailer for the first season as well, and you can watch that below.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch

Dave Filoni joined Kenned on stage to announced that the next season of Bad Batch is officially launching on Jan. 4, 2023.

Tales of the Jedi

Filoni and Charles Murray collaborated on this six-episode series of shorts that was announced to be premiering all at once — Oct. 26 — on Disney+. Three of the six shorts are centered on Ashoka (voiced by Ashley Eckstein) and the other three are about Count Dooku ().

Three of the six shorts are about Ashoka and three are about Count Dooku, and you can get glimpses at them in the series in the below images.

Ahsoka

Jon Favreau joined Kennedy and Filoni on stage to preview Ahsoka's journey from animation to live-action. 

"In the second season of Mandalorian, we were able to bring in a character Dave had been thinking about for live action [from] when he was on Clone Wars. The idea of introducing her through the show was a way to see if the audience wanted to see this character [more]," Favreau explained.

Rosario Dawson plays the character in live action.

Skeleton Crew

This forthcoming Disney+ show is a show about a group of kids who get lost in the Star Wars galaxy. It's set in the New Republic, and Jude Law returned to the D23 Expo stage to share that he is starring in the show.

Although they flashed an image of him in character, because it is in production now, there was no context given for who he is playing. 

The Mandalorian

Favreau pointed out that when they first brought the first Star Wars universe-set series to D23 Expo, no one in the audience had seen it yet — which meant that no one knew what to call Grogu. But oh, how times have changed!

Some of the Season 3 cast — Katee Sackhoff, Emily Swallow, Amy Sedaris, Giancarlo Esposito, and Pedro Pascal — came out to huge appaluse and screams, and the actors themselves were excited to bound out on stage and see each other without their armor. Plus, this was the first time Swallow and Sedaris met each other in person, which gave Swallow a fan girl moment.

Also, Rick Famuyiwa, who directed three episodes of The Mandalorian in the past, has been added as an executive producer to Season 3. If you scour the IMDb page for the show (or him), you. may have already known that, but the official announcement was made on the D23 Expo stage.

"I left off in a place of vulnerability, wondering what is going to happen to me? This is a wonderful place to be and a wonderful springboard into Season 3," said Esposito of his arc as Moff Gideon thus far. But, of course, he did not tell the audience what would happen to him.

Instead, the cast talked about how they have gotten into their roles thus far, with Swallow referencing her military man father, who could convey his own authority when she felt like she should be in trouble but he wasn't saying anything, while Sedaris made a joke that she doesn't know what she's saying half the time, but she memorizes the lines and gets laughs "and I don't even know why I'm getting laughs."

They also showed the first footage from the upcoming third season, which debuts in 2023. It teases that there may be a new Mandalorian in the galaxy. Watch that below.

“You are a Mandalorian no more.”
The new season of #TheMandalorian starts streaming in 2023 on @DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/Bih7bW3JrS

— Star Wars | Andor Premieres Sept 21 on Disney+ (@starwars) September 10, 2022

Indiana Jones

Director James Mangold brought the first trailer for the fifth and final Indiana Jones movie, which will only be in theaters as of June 30, 2023. Stars Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge joined him after the trailer to a standing ovation, which had Ford responding, "Thank you" to the audience and getting choked up.

"Indiana Jones movies are about mystery and adventure, but they're also about heart. And we had a really human story to tell, as well as a movie that will kick your ass," he said, noting that one of the reasons he is so excited about the film is Waller-Bridge.

Waller-Bridge is "a really great foil" for Ford in the film, Mangold said. She plays an adventurer named Helena who is already seen bantering with Indy in the trailer.

Although Mangold didn't direct the first four films, Waller-Bridge noted that he "protected and brought back everything that people love and need from these films and then brought that extra sparkle."

Based on the energy from those on stage and those in the audience, this film will likely spark an extended wave of interest in the franchise, but even if it does, it really is meant to be the end of the beloved, titular adventurer.

"I cannot fall down for you again!" Ford said.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Ryan Coogler took a break from editing the Black Panther sequel to join Feige on stage and introduce some exclusive footage (for the room only) from the new movie. The sequence focused on Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) in court defending why Wakanda doesn't share vibranium with the rest of the world. Her response is that they "never trade it not because of the dangerous potential of vibranium, but because of the dangerous potential of you." 

The courtroom moments are interspersed with an attempted robbery at a Wakandian center. As masked men in guns come in, Ramonda narrates, "The king is dead, Black Panther is gone, they have lost their protector." But, those working in the center will be more than fine, as they have female warriors and vibranium on their side.

Bassett, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, and Tenoch Huerta all came out on stage to further pump the audience up for the film, as well as to celebrate and remember Chadwick Boseman, who posthumously became a Disney Legend earlier in the expo.

"Everything has changed, everything is bigger, everything is better, everything is new," Duke said. "I'm not the most technologically inclined character, but the tech is cool. The tech is different. I'm [also] excited for everyone to see the family grow."

Ironheart

Anthony Ramos was announced to star opposite Dominique Thorne in Ironheart, another upcoming title from Coogler. He will play Parker Robbins, aka The Hood.

"He's a complex guy, and I think Parker's almost a guy [who] was a misfit and he's like, 'I want to take in other misfits, and I want to show the world that you looked at us like outcasts, but we're going to end on top.' It's a deep, deep dive into a very dark place he goes into, unfortunately, but I think on the inside Parker believes, truly, that he's doing good. And Parker has a love for his crew and a love for his people," Ramos said, adding one final note that he "kicks ass."

Although Marvel Studios projects often deal with magic and technology individually, this one, the team said, brings both into one film. Parker deals in dark magic, while Riri Williams (Thorne) is technological.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

To preview Phase 5 of Marvel, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania stars Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Jonathan Majors brought an exclusive clip for the audience in the room. 

In it, Cassandra (Kathryn Newton) finds a way to send signals to the Quantum Realm. Although Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) doesn't think it's a good idea to make contact, it happens anyway, and they all get sucked in. Kathryn ends up being taken prisoner, while Scott (Rudd) has an ominous encounter with Kang (Majors).

"Have I killed you before? They all blur together after a while," Kang says. 

When Scott asks who he is, he replies, "Just a man who's lost a lot of time, just like you. But we can help each other with that. Someone stole something from me, and you're the only one who can steal it back."

Scott doesn't want to make a deal, but with his family in danger, he likely won't be able to keep that moral stance for long.

The movie will open in theaters on Feb. 17, 2023, and the footage also offered the quickest of glimpses at Bill Murray's role.

Werewolf by Night

Composer Michael Giacchino directs this Halloween special presentation that counts Gael García Bernal and Laura Donnelly (who were present in Anaheim, Calif. at the D23 Expo with Giacchino) among its stars. 

Giacchino shared that when he first met with the actors, he asked them to tell him about the things that scared them them most in their lives because that was the kind of terror they wanted to instill in their audience when they watch the special next month on Disney+.

Watch the trailer they showed at the expo below. The special premieres on Oct. 7.

Secret Invasion

Don Cheadle stepped on stage with Feige to preview the crossover series coming to Disney+ in 2023. The show also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, and Olivia Colman, but the clip the duo brought for the event (which you can watch below) focuses first on Cheadle's James Rhodes and Jackson's Nick Fury coming sitting down to talk about an invasion that Jim has known about for a decade and a half before showing some of the more intense physical action that Marvel is known for. That series will roll right into Cheadle's second upcoming Disney+ project (see blow after you watch the trailer for Secret Invasion).

Amor Wars

Cheadle's Jim will take center stage in this second series, which has not yet begun production (that starts in 2023), but was announced to be six parts.

Loki

The second season of Loki is filming in the U.K. right now, but cast members Tom HIddleston, Sophia Di Martino, Ke Huy Quan, and Owen Wilson were flown to the West Coast to tease what's to come in the sophomore season.

The second season will pick up where the first left off, with the titular character (played by Hiddleston) back in the TVA, but with a "whole cast of new and returning characters to explore the ever-expanding and infinitely more dangerous multiverse," said Hiddleston.

Additionally, Mobius IWilson) no longer knows who Loji is, which the actor compared to the Talking Heads song "Not My Beautiful Life" in that the season is about, "How did we get here?"

Meanwhile, Quan joked that he thought he was there for the Indiana Jones panel, given that he played Short Round in the Temple of Doom, and because of a little Disney magic (OK, the massive backstage area), they were reunited before the day's end. Click here to see that.

Echo

The Hawkeye spin-off just wrapped production, and Feige and the cast brought some first footage for the room at the expo. The show centers on Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) when she returns to her hometown and has to come to terms with her past, including reconnecting her family, her community, and her Native American roots.

The cast learned ASL for the project, and K. Devery Jacobs called out the importance of representation for both Indigenous communities and Deaf communities.

Daredevil / She-Hulk: Attorney at Law

Vincent D'Onofrio, who was out with the cast of Echo, stayed on stage to introduce a Daredevil: By Night section and welcome Charlie Cox. But unfortunately, they had no footage to show because they don't begin filming that 18-episode series until 2023. So instead, they ran a clip of Cox as Daredevil in an upcoming episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, which streams new episodes Thursdays on Disney+.

In it, the two banter and flirt as they discuss the best way to take out a warehouse full of goons. Her heart is beating fast, which he can hear but she denies, and they disagree on the best strategy to go into the situation, with him noting that she can't just smash her way around all of the time. He has some cool skills up his sleeve, and soon enough, she has to admit that.

It was not specified which episode this clip was from.

Captain America: New World Order

Tim Blake Nelson is coming back to the MCU for this upcoming film, so longtime Marvel fans will finally get to see what became of The Leader after he was left on the floor almost a decade and a half ago. Additionally, Shira Haas has been cast in the role of mutant Sabra.

Thunderbolts

Another return to the MCU was announced for Thunderbolts: David Harbour, who now joins cast members including Florence Pugh (who was not in physical attendance but sent a video message), Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, and Hannah John-Kamen. But he isn't the only return to the MCU here, as Sebastian Stan was announced as a new cast member live on stage.

To get a taste of the dynamic of this team, it was said that the Winter Soldier is the most stable of the bunch. 

"They look like a good trouble bunch and maybe I know a thing or two about that," he said. "It's good to be back and join a team of some sort."

Meanwhile, Russell was self-deprecating by calling John Walker "the most boring Avenger."

And Louis-Dreyfus joked that when she got a call to play a character named Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, "you had me at Contessa. 

The Marvels

Some first footage from the upcoming comedic superhero team up from director Nia DaCosta showed Teyonah Parris' Monica Rambeau stepping further into a position of authority, with Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) picking up right after the final moments of Ms. Marvel. 

Her character's excitement for new adventures was palpable on-screen, as was Vellani's for being at the D23 Expo, which is the biggest event she has done thus far, more than rivaling the fictional AvengerCon her character attended in Season 1 of her show.

Avatar: The Way of Water

James Cameron could not be here in person, but he Zoomed in from New Zealand to talk about finishing the work on his first Avatar sequel, which is due in theaters Dec. 16, while cast members including Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, and Sigourney Weaver stepped on stage.

Since this movie focuses on the Sully family, the idea of "protection" looms large, Worthington noted. It comes into play for characters' immediate families, as well as for wider communities.

After passing out 3-D glasses, the audience at D23 Expo got to screen five clips from the forthcoming film that exemplify those themes. The first clip focused on Na'vi, while the second saw Weaver return (she played Grace, as in the original film, and Grace's Na'vi daughter here). The others led a bit more directly into the action and conflict of the film, including expanding upon a sequence from the trailer in which Jake (Worthington) tells his family of the imminent danger, which led into the final clip in which they have to learn to adjust to a new place and new ways.