Disney Officially Breaks A 15-Year Curse With New Spinoff Movie

Descendants is officially returning with a new movie that breaks a Disney curse after 15 years.

The Descendants movies, which follow the children of Disney villains rubbing shoulders with the children of Disney heroes at the newly integrated school Auradon Prep, have spawned a sprawling multimedia franchise for Disney. The fifth feature-length installment, Descendants: Wicked Wonderland, debuted on Disney Channel on July 16 and Disney+ on July 17, but in addition to the quintet of movies that have been made since the original debuted in 2015, the franchise has expanded to include live-action and animated series, books, albums, short films, and even a live concert tour.

Disney has now officially announced that they will be expanding the Descendants franchise even further. They have greenlit the spinoff movie Hidden Heroes: A Descendants Story, which will be coming to Disney Channel and Disney+. The live-action movie, which follows the children of Disney sidekicks going on their own adventure, goes into production next week. This project marks the first time that a Disney Channel musical franchise has received a feature-length spinoff since 2011, when High School Musical character Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale) starred in the direct-to-video movie Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure.

Although Disney Channel has spawned several major musical franchises since the final High School Musical movie, including Teen Beach Movie (which concluded with 2015's Teen Beach 2) and Z-O-M-B-I-E-S (which will continue with the upcoming Zombies 5: Secrets of the Sea in the summer of 2027), no other movie spinoffs have been produced since 2011.

So far, the entire announced cast of Hidden Heroes: A Descendants Story comprises actors who have never appeared in the franchise before. This includes Dior Goodjohn (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) as Jennie, the daughter of Aladdin's Genie, Momona Tamada (Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender) as Zara, the daughter of The Emperor's New Groove Yzma, Jacob Rodriguez (Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado) as Kronk Jr., the son of Yzma's henchman Kronk, Eva Fossaceca Smedley (Welcome to Flatch) as Meri, the daughter of Sleeping Beauty's Merryweather, and Harry Jones (I Fought the Law) as Lou, the son of Beauty and the Beast's Lumiere.

The cast will be rounded out by Connor Wong (Cruel Summer), Kyra Wong (Elle), and Rhys Dawkins (Clickbait) as siblings who are members of the Potts family from Beauty and the Beast (though it is as-yet unclear if they are the children of Chip or his mother, Mrs. Potts).

Hidden Heroes will be directed by Jude Weng, a television director with prior musical experience, having helmed four episodes of The CW's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Weng will be working from a screenplay by Tamara Chestna (Descendants: Wicked Wonderland), Eydie Faye (Camp Rock 3), and Emma Fletcher (Summer Camp Island). Chestna is also executive producing alongside Wicked Wonderland's Gary Marsh and Zombies 4's Mark Ordesky and Jane Fleming. Below, read a comment on the production from Disney Kids & Family president Ayo Davis:

One of the things that has always made ‘Descendants’ so special is the way it invites audiences to experience familiar Disney stories through an entirely new perspective. With ‘Hidden Heroes,’ we're finally putting the sidekicks center stage, because they've always been an essential part of Disney's greatest adventures. It's a fun, surprising new chapter that expands the ‘Descendants’ universe with all the music, dance and heart fans love and expect from the franchise.

With this new installment, Descendants continues to cement its status as the biggest Disney Channel musical franchise in history. Hidden Heroes will be its sixth feature-length project, which is more than any other franchise under the brand umbrella can boast (though Zombies comes close with five).