New Star Wars and Marvel films and TV shows announced by Disney

The Marvel and Star Wars universes are about to get bigger - both on the small and big screens, with a number of films and TV shows announced by Disney.

The company revealed the titles of several series and movies planned for the coming years at its digital investor day, which is basically a big presentation explaining how Disney is doing.

Many of the shows will be appearing on Disney+, which was launched just over a year ago, and now has 86.8 million subscribers.

However, that's still well behind Netflix, which has nearly 200 million subscribers worldwide.

Here's five of the biggest announcements that have got the internet talking...

1. Star Wars will get 10 spinoff series

Following the success of The Mandalorian, more Star Wars spinoffs are being added to Disney+.

One of the biggest reveals was about a show already in development.

Hayden Christensen, who played Anakin Skywalker in the prequel trilogy, is returning as Darth Vader for the new Obi Wan Kenobi series.

The series begins filming early next year and will tell the story of Kenobi, played by Ewan McGregor, set ten years after Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and nine years before Episode IV: A New Hope.

Actor Hayden Christensen is set to return as Darth Vader in the Obi-Wan series

As for new films, A Droid Story starring robots C-3PO and R2-D2 as they guide a new character has been announced, as well as TV show 'Lando', which is about the smuggler and on-off BFF to Han Solo, Lando Calrissian. Donald Glover - also known as rapper Childish Gambino - played Calrissian in the movie Solo and is now back for his own solo series.

Also in the works are two shows called The Rangers of the New Republic and Ahsoka. Both are set during the same timeline as the Mandalorian. It comes after the character of Ashoka played by Rosario Dawson showed up in series two of The Mandalorian.

2. Star Wars is getting its first female film director

Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins is directing a new Star Wars film called Rogue Squadron, which is scheduled to hit cinemas for Christmas 2023.

Rogue Squadron was the team of fighter pilots led by Luke Skywalker and Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy of movies.

The Rogue group also featured in several comics, books and a popular video game called Rogue Squadron was released for Nintendo in the 90s.

It will be the first live-action Star Wars film to be directed by a woman. With Patty Jenkins saying she wants to make the "greatest fighter pilot movie of all time".

"I think that's because I grew up the daughter of a great fighter pilot, and every day I would wake up and go outside and look up, and I would see my father and his squadron take off, roaring across the sky," Jenkins says.

"It was the most thrilling thing that I've experienced in my entire life."

3. Marvel: The Black Panther sequel

The next Black Panther film will not replace Chadwick Boseman with a new actor.

It was not clear how Disney would approach the follow up movie, but the company has now explained that the new Black Panther film will "explore the world of Wakanda and all of the rich and varied characters introduced in the first film".

Chadwick Boseman died in August and was the star of the first film, playing the main character Black Panther.

4. Loki is back, so is Thor and...Batman?

We already knew that Tom Hiddleston is coming back to play the role of Thor villain Loki. But now we know a few more details.

The new TV show, called Loki, picks up with the character after he used the Tesseract in Avengers Endgame to escape. The new show will find him hopping around in time and space, and crossing paths with new threats and a mysterious new organisation called the TVA.

Meanwhile, Christian Bale, the star of three Batman, movies is joining the Marvel Universe. Bale will be appearing in Thor: Love and Thunder, playing the bad guy God Butcher alongside Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman.

The film will arrive in cinemas in May 2022.

5. Cinema releases

Disney says that its upcoming films Peter Pan & Wendy and Tom Hank's Pinocchio would be launched directly on to Disney+, and not shown in cinemas.

Disney is the latest major studio to skip cinema showings in favour of streaming.

Last week Warner Brothers said all its 2021 releases would debut on streaming services.

Tom Hanks will star in a Pinocchio film on Disney+

The coronavirus crisis has hit the film and entertainment industry hard, and cinemas are desperate for movies to encourage viewers back to watch films on their screens.

But content producers want to offer audiences the chance to watch films at home, especially while they may not be ready to go back to cinemas due to the pandemic.

Despite pushing back the release of a number of films because of coronavirus, Disney has said many of its biggest features are still expected to hit cinemas.

These include Marvel's Black Widow, Pixar's Luca, a Lion King prequel and a Buzz Lightyear prequel.

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