This coming Monday, we’ll already be in August. To stop you from being caught out, and help you plan your viewing during a jam-packed month across all streaming services, let’s look at Disney+’s upcoming offerings. They range from direction-changing movie prequels to a real-life Ted Lasso tale. Plus, two highly anticipated Marvel and Star Wars series make their debut.
Lightyear (Film)
If you missed it at the cinemas, Toy Story spin-off Lightyear lands on Disney+ on 3 August. Featuring the voice of Chris Evans as Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear, Lightyear is a sci-fi adventure positioned as the tale that inspired the action figure from Pixar’s beloved first feature film. Marooned on a hostile planet 4.2 million light-years from Earth, Buzz and his team – including robot cat Sox – must find a way home through space and time.
When we reviewed Lightyear a month a half ago, the verdict was that’s it polished entertainment, but trades too heavily on nostalgia and campy action at the expense of heartfelt moments we’ve come to expect from Pixar. Still, now’s your chance to watch it and form an opinion for yourself.
Prey (Film)
Screening from 5 August is Prey, an all-new entry in the Predator movie franchise. The difference now is that the man vs. alien survival action is shifted back in time – 300 years in fact – to the American Great Plains, and the home of the Comanche Nation. Fierce warrior Naru (Amber Midthunder) vows to protect her people from a mysterious danger, but her hunt leads her to a highly evolved alien sporting a technologically advanced arsenal unlike anything Naru has ever encountered.
Featuring a cast of almost exclusively Native and First Nation actors, Prey is directed by The Boys and 10 Cloverfield Lane’s Dan Trachtenberg. The film is notable for being the first feature-length title to release with a Comanche dubbing option. It also received a standing ovation after a special early screening this past week at San Diego Comic-Con.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (Series)
The Marvel Cinematic Universe leans into its comedic side with She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. In this Ally McBeal-esque series, Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany plays the fourth wall-breaking She-Hulk/Jennifer Walters, a lawyer who specializes in superhuman-oriented legal cases. Oh, and she’s the cousin of Bruce Banner/the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo).
As Jennifer’s already knotty personal and professional life is complicated even more by her unwanted superpowers, she encounters recognisable MCU faces such as Wong (Benedict Wong), Emil Blonsky/the Abomination (Tim Roth) and even that other superhero attorney Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Charlie Cox)
The nine-episode She-Hulk: Attorney at Law premieres on 17 August and, with weekly episode drops, concludes 12 October. Here is the latest trailer, revealed at Comic-Con.
In other Marvel matters, I Am Groot, a collection of five original shorts featuring the fan-favourite Guardians of the Galaxy character in toddler form, debuts on 10 August.
Welcome to Wrexham (Series)
In 2020, Rob McElhenney (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) purchased one of the oldest football teams in the world, Wrexham. They hoped to turn the Welsh club into an underdog story the whole world could root for. One problem: the pair have no football management experience. Documentary series Welcome to Wrexham tracks the actors’ efforts to revive the struggling club, elevate their league fortunes, and do right by the local community for whom football is more important than life or death.
There’s no indication how many episodes make up Welcome to Wrexham, but each is 30 minutes long, and the series premieres with a back-to-back double on Disney+ on 25 August.
Andor (Series)
If you loved Rogue One, you definitely want to catch prequel Andor from 31 August, when the latest Star Wars series premieres with the first two episodes of its 12-episode haul.
While Andor shows Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor evolve from a thief into a revolutionary hero, the series will also explore the burgeoning rebellion against the Empire in the dark, dangerous years before A New Hope, and how different people and planets became involved. It’s a key part of Star Wars lore that has never been shown onscreen before, and even has Genevieve O’Reilly reprising her role as Mon Mothma, the Galactic Empire senator who would secretly help found the Rebel Alliance.
Further exciting news about Andor? Its second season is already in development.