Born Again, Ironheart Trailers at Disney Upfront

The theme of Disney’s 2024 presentation to advertisers Tuesday was “connections” — and not just because of the running piece started by “Deadpool” star Ryan Reynolds and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” star Rob McElhenney, in which they continually share a five-second ad spot with the text “Connections!” with a Disneyified logo and voiceover.

No, the symbol of unity between Disney’s brands consisted of a slew of announcements from Marvel, as well as other high-wattage projects like ‘Star Wars’, ‘The Bear’, ‘Only Murders in the Building’, the ‘Wizards of Waverly Place” sequel series, “9-1-1,” Ryan Murphy’s new slate of FX titles and more franchises with intersecting talent.

Disney kicked off the event with Oscar-winning “Poor Things” star Emma Stone introducing Mouse House big boss Bob Iger; such a job would traditionally go to a top ABC star. The use of film talent such as Stone and Reynolds indicates that developments for Disney are no longer just about television.

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As CEO Iger took the stage, he said this performance at the Javits Center in New York City was his first speech at an ABC presentation in 30 years.

“Today we’re going to share with you the incredible projects we’re working on,” Iger said. “And later, Jimmy Kimmel will be out to tear them all apart. He’ll probably tear me apart too. I wanted to be part of this presentation for two reasons, really. One of these is expressing gratitude to the talented creative people who make our businesses so inspiring, exciting and so rewarding. And to share my enormous optimism. The last time I appeared on stage was 30 years ago, when I was head of ABC Entertainment.

“As you might imagine, being here today has caused me to reflect on everything that has happened since then, and the radical changes that have transformed our business over the past thirty years,” he said. “For example, television used to be something you could watch on television, while the entire business model, the path to media, is drastically different. What hasn’t changed is the fact that success in this industry is really dependent on one thing, and that’s telling great stories, and great storytelling is something that Disney has always excelled at. We have a range of excellent creative ventures utilizing world-class talent.”

Then, Disney’s head of ad sales, Rita Ferro, came out to woo Madison Avenue, first as a cartoon in an animated sketch starring Brian and Peter from the 20th television-produced “Family Guy,” and then as her real self on the stage. .

“Deadpool” star Reynolds not only came out as a plug-in for Marvel’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” and the season extension of his FX docuseries “Welcome to Wrexham” (for which he was joined by fellow executive producer and co-star Rob McElhenney), but also remind everyone that he got his big break over twenty years ago on ABC’s TGIF comedy “Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place.” And really drive that “connections” corner home.

“Okay, the theme of this presentation is connections and I have a lot of connections,” Reynolds said. “But I don’t think we’re going into this hard enough. So we made a Disney logo,” he added before tossing out the music video that literally screams, “Connections!” “Many of you got to know me mainly because of my work in marketing. Did you know that I got my big break 26 years ago on an ABC midseason replacement called “Two Guys, a Girl and A Pizza Place” with the great Nathan Fillion.

Fillion would later appear on stage with “Star Wars” character Chewbacca to make some groan-worthy wookie/”The Rookie” jokes and introduce the team behind the new Disney+ “Star Wars” series “The Acolyte.” set. Creator Leslye Headland and star Amandla Stenberg and her co-stars then created a special teaser for the audience.

Marvel dominated for a chunk of time, with the casts of Disney+ TV series ‘Daredevil: Born Again’, ‘Agatha All Along’ and ‘Ironheart’ unveiling teasers for the MCU shows.

Selena Gomez came out to hype the crowd about the “Wizards of Waverly Place” sequel series “Wizards Beyond Waverly Place” and drop a first look – before being asked to join “Only Murders in the Building” co-star Steve Martin and reassure Martin In short, this won’t disrupt their Hulu show. She made it up to the boys by debuting the teaser trailer for the fourth season of ‘OMITB’.

The cast of “The Bear,” including Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri, and series creator Christopher Storer couldn’t be there in person, so they sent along the Season 3 teaser to those lucky enough to be in the room are.

ABC fixture Ryan Seacrest arrived to make the big announcement of ABC’s first-ever “Golden Bachelorette,” introducing Joan Vassos as the show’s first lead.

Other appearances included Ellen Pompeo to tease her upcoming Hulu drama ‘Natalia’, Serena Williams to reveal she will host the 2024 ESPY Awards on July 11, Jim Gaffigan to announce his new Hulu stand-up comedy special , Sterling K. Brown and James Marsden unveils first look at their Hulu show ‘Paradise’, Kerry Washington talks about the second seasons of her Onyx series ‘UnPrisoned’ and ‘Reasonable Doubt’, Kaitlin Olson, who stopped by to discuss her new to promote ABC drama series ‘High Potential’. ‘ and the quartet of Kim Kardashian, Michelle Williams, Emma Roberts and Angela Bassett all come together to promote their respective FX, Hulu and ABC projects.

In addition, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts and “Abbott Elementary” creator and star Quinta Brunson brought out ESPN’s new “Monday Night Countdown” commentator Jason Kelce to celebrate his new gig and promote Disney’s turn with the Super Bowl in 2027. David Muir of ABC News and Robin Roberts also appeared to be promoting “Good Morning America” ​​and “ABC World News Tonight.”

The whole thing ended with Jimmy Kimmel having fun on the big screen with a giant Bob Iger AI head and warning the audience about the potential growth of “A-Iger.”