Kathryn Hahn Introduces Jon Favreau's Oswald at D23!

There's another incredible Disney project that I'm very happy to be a part of. And I have a feeling that all of you in this room are going to be very excited about it. To tell you a little bit more, please welcome writer, director, and my friend, Jon Favreau. Thanks so much. Now I'm here to announce something that's a personal project. It's about a character that a lot of people haven't yet heard of, but I have a feeling that some of you in this room might know. His name is Oswald. Now this is a character that Walt Disney created with his longtime partner of iWorks before Mickey Mouse. Back in 1927, they had a successful run with Oswald doing animated shorts, but sadly, when Walt tried to get the bigger budget for the next year's work, he was fired and he lost the rights to Oswald and most of his animation team. And so Walt took that very hard and went back west. Along with iWorks, he created an iconic character, Mickey Mouse. Now in 1928, Steamboat Willie came out, which was a huge success, but Oswald, unfortunately, was lost to obscurity. That is until several years ago when Disney got the rights to Oswald back. We've seen him pop up in games and in shorts and things, but Oswald and his story always intrigue me. And as I was working on Jungle Book with the lead animator Andy Jones, the two of us wanted to find a way to tell his story. Now that was ten years ago. And now ten years later, the project is finally complete and coming to Disney Plus as a three-part miniseries this February. Now listen to me, because I think you'll appreciate this. We only did for Oswald, we used hand-drawn 2D animation. And not only that, but there's a lot of animators from Disney that used to do 2D and don't get to do it anymore. We brought a lot of them back. We've got an animator named Sergio Cabos who's here tonight. He helped recruit the team along with Andy and also a whole generation of younger animators who shared our enthusiasm for Oswald, and it's been a dream project. Now the story of Oswald is set in many historic locations that Disney fans would recognize, like the site of the old Hyperion Studios in Silver Lake, Walt's office, Office 3H, on the Disney lot in Burbank. And then we got to shoot in Disneyland itself one year ago. We were there for three weeks. Maybe some of you were there with us. And that was a dream come true. Now, it's in February, which is a long way off. We tend to not promote streaming projects this far in advance, but this is the last E23 before we premiere, and I really want to share a quick glimpse with you of what we're doing with Oswald. In 1969, and now we're going to have Oswald. It's now in February at Disney+. Also, as an exclusive gift only for D23, we got together with the animators, with the artists, the tech team from Fairview Portals to do an AR layer to this experience. We have collectible cards, only available here, and they're going to be given to each of you as you leave the venue tonight. Now, there are ten in all, four to a pack. Each one is set at a different location in Disneyland, along with the animation and music from the show. By the way, John Debney did the music for that. Those of you who know him, he grew up on the lot. Getting to work with him again. Now, on the back, there's a QR code, an AR code actually, that unlocks an AR experience that we filmed in Disneyland. Now, if you have Snap, it will open up in that application, but if you don't, don't worry about it. You'll still be able to interact with the experience through the web AR feature on your phone. It's available to everybody. Check it out. It's a lot of fun. Make sure you turn your sound up, because there's music, there's animation, there's some 3D. Our little tech team did a great job with it, and so it's our gift to you.