Ok, well, I managed to join an Instagram Live with writer Joyce Sherri and got some solid details about Walt Disney Animation Studios’ upcoming Disney+ series #Tiana while on her Instagram, along with some other interesting details and opinions, if I remember everything she said correctly:
1. While the trades revealed her working on the show in 2023, she was involved with the series way in the beginning as one of its writers since 2021 and joined as early as 2022 when the show’s original director Stella Meghie stepped down to do Wonder Man for Disney+ over at Marvel Studios, before the strike changed a lot of things and had the Wonder Man series be put under the Marvel Television banner with Andrew Guest being the show’s showrunner when the strikes changed things around for everything in the industry.
2. Jennifer Lewis will be back to voice Mama Odie and Odie’s pet snake Juju will return as well. And she re-affirmed Anika Noni Rose is returning to voice Tiana.
3. She wouldn’t reveal who’s doing the new songs and music for Tiana, but she said it wouldn’t be Randy Newman, which, to be honest, I kinda figured wouldn’t happen since he may still be recovering from his injuries that made him cancel his tour and because he may be focused on scoring the music for #ToyStory5 and writing new songs for that movie too. She also teased some of the new songs like the opening number of the series that really starts it off with a bang and a duet between Tiana and Naveen, but that their duet wouldn’t necessarily be a love song.
4. She also mentioned how a lot of research was put in for making sure they got down the look of the world of Maldonia right for this series.
5. I was a bit scared to ask this question, but when I asked her what the animation style for Tiana would be and if it would be either hand-drawn animated or in the animation style of Paperman, she said “Paperman is the reference for the animation style of the Tiana series,” and she said that while they’re not trying to disrespect what has come before and honor the work that came in the original hand-drawn animated classic in #ThePrincessAndTheFrog, because not a lot of 2D animators remain at Disney, they had to find a way to honor that film’s animation style while also being in tune with the new technology of today’s age, if I remember all of what she said correctly. However, she did confirm that she did go to Eric Goldberg and Mark Henn (before he retired) to make sure she got the looks of characters like Louis the Alligator and Tiana as close to how they look in the original animated film when translating them into a Paperman-style of animation for Tiana’s series. This detail is a detail I’m so glad was confirmed as I felt like the veterans and old guard of Disney Animation would have some involvement on Tiana before certain members retired.
6. When I threw out the possibility of how Moana 2 making a billion would mark a sort of successful experiment in turning a Disney+ series into a movie that Tiana could follow suit, she said “that could happen,” but not with Tiana in its current state as a series right now and that it might be for another story. It kinda makes sense, since Tiana is said to be an episodic story.
7. She said she understood the importance of wanting to keep the legacy and memory of the medium of hand-drawn animation at Disney alive and says she did the best she could to honor that medium’s memory and legacy as much as possible, hence why she more or less said the reference for Tiana’s animation style would be Disney’s short #Paperman, which she gave a lot of strong praise to in the Instagram Live she hosted. And she also said animation deserves a lot more respect and credit in Hollywood these days compared to the live-action remakes we see now a days from studios like Disney and she said she doesn’t understand why a few people want to see The Princess and the Frog be done in live-action. But she said if it was a live-action sequel to an animated film like Christopher Robin or something more along the lines of Mufasa: The Lion King, she would be okay with that. Me personally, I would prefer a sequel be animated only (hand-drawn animated or Paperman-style), but I wouldn’t immediately shrug off that suggestion either.
8. She also agreed with me on how original films at Disney need to be more focused on, which led me to comment to her and say, for that reason alone, that Pixar’s Elio was my most anticipated movie of 2025 (especially in light of Pixar’s current struggles right now). She also agreed with me there and was about to say something about #Elio but couldn’t reveal anything out of fear of getting in trouble. She also said she recently saw a version of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ 2026 original movie and that’s all she would say, along with saying and also re-iterating what Lee and Bush said that more original stories at Walt Disney Animation Studios are being worked on right now as we speak.
9. There is a clue about the Tiana series at Tiana’s Bayou Adventure in Disney World and Disneyland, a detail many have pointed out in the past. And that’s all she’d say.
10. She really couldn’t reveal much about when the series is coming but teased that what she showed of the series to Anika Noni Rose made her and Joyce agree that they have something special coming when it releases on Disney+. And she said all of the series is her favorite episode.
Well, that’s about everything I could remember. Hearing everything Joyce said, which I made sure to include here, made me more hopeful and excited for this show again. I would’ve really liked to see it fully hand-drawn animated, a sentiment she also shares, but havin’ heard what she said, I feel a bit better about this series and believe it’s in good hands, now more than I did in the past. So that’s a nice way to end the year that is 2024 and head into the new year that will soon be 2025.
