The Mandalorian Season 2 Ended, Here’s What Disney Plus Has in Store for 2021

Photo Courtesy: Lucasfilm Ltd./Disney Plus

We’ll miss Grogu. Even if he had a penchant for eating eggs from nearly extinct frog species. The finale of The Mandalorian season 2 left a lot of unanswered questions. Will we get to see a de-aged version of a certain Jedi master again? Will Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff) end up dueling Mando (Pedro Pascal) to properly claim her sword?

It’s unclear when we’ll get any of those answers. The release date of season 3 of The Mandalorian hasn’t been made official yet. The show’s shooting schedule is also unclear. But a lack of new Mando missions in the near future doesn’t mean you can’t still keep using your Disney Plus subscription as a source of escapism during pandemic times. Here are some of the new films and TV shows confirmed for release on Disney Plus in 2021. They should persuade the Mandalorian fan in you to keep your subscription.

WandaVision

Avengers and super-powered beings Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) get their happily ever after in this 9-episode mixture between the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and a classic TV sitcom.

Photo Courtesy: Marvel Studios/Disney Plus

The TV show pays homage to quintessential shows like I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch and Full House. Our stars get to play house and the ideal — yet atypical couple — until hints of what could be real life start to shatter their suburban, idealized existences.

Release date: January 15, 2021.

Raya and the Last Dragon

This new computer-animated feature from Disney Animation Studios follows warrior Raya (voice of Kelly Marie Tran) as she seeks to find the last dragon, save the world and unite its people. But the heroine’s journey will end up entailing much more than just a dragon.

Photo Courtesy: The Walt Disney Studios

Following the model of the recent mid-pandemic Disney release Mulan, Raya and the Last Dragon will be released simultaneously in theaters and on Disney Plus for subscribers with Premier Access.

Release date: March 5, 2021.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Bromance. That’s the promise of the first trailer of the MCU show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. At the end of Avengers: Endgame, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) left his Captain America shield to longtime friend Sam/Falcon (Anthony Mackie). “I’ll do my best,” Sam told Cap, feeling the weight of the responsibility ahead.

Photo Courtesy: Marvel Entertainment/YouTube

In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam faces the complicated legacy of that shield with the help of his buddy Bucky/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) — and the bromance ensues.

Release date: March 19, 2021.

Loki

You knew Thor’s mischievous brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) deserved his own TV show even before he took Comic-Con by storm in 2013 and had the whole pop culture convention chanting his name.

Photo Courtesy: Marvel Entertainment/YouTube

This MCU show will focus on Loki’s involvement with the mysterious Time Variance Authority after his 2012 self managed to grab the Tesseract during the Avengers: Endgame‘s Time Heist. The 2018 version of the character had been killed by Thanos at the beginning of Infinity War. But Loki is hard to kill. Owen Wilson and Gugu Mbatha-Raw round out the cast of Loki.

Release date: May 2021.

What If…?

What If…? is precisely the question that this MCU animated show will try to answer by giving us different versions of the stories we’ve seen in the Marvel movies.

Photo Courtesy: Marvel Entertainment/YouTube

Actors Michael B. Jordan, Mark Ruffalo, Hayley Atwell and Natalie Portman, among many others, are reprising their Marvel roles and voicing these alternate timeline stories. Jeffrey Wright voices The Watcher, a non-earthly being who observes the multiverse and occasionally might intervene. He guides the viewer through these new realities.

Release date: Summer 2021.

Ms. Marvel

After titles like Captain Marvel and Black Panther, Marvel Studios keeps betting on a more diverse and inclusive universe.In Ms. Marvel, newcomer Iman Vellani plays Kamala Khan, a Muslim Pakistani teenager from Jersey City who’s trying to figure out who she is.

Photo Courtesy: Marvel Entertainment/YouTube

And she’ll become Ms. Marvel. The character is expected not only to be introduced in this Disney Plus TV show but she’s also set to appear in future MCU films.

Release date: Late 2021.

Hawkeye

Jeremy Renner reprises the role of Clint Barton/Hawkeye, an archer and superhero without actual superpowers. Joining him is Dickinson‘s Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop, another archer who’s expected to take on the mantle of Hawkeye. Vera Farmiga rounds out the cast.

Photo Courtesy: Marvel Studios

Release date: Late 2021.

The Book of Boba Fett

This spinoff TV show was announced during a post-credits scene at the end of season 2 of The Mandalorian. The new Star Wars property will be set within the same timeline as The Mandalorian and star Temuera Morrison as the bounty hunter Boba Fett and Ming-Na Wen as Fennec. They were both introduced in The Mandalorian and played a vital role in the retrieval of Baby Yoda from Imperial hands.

Photo Courtesy: Lucasfilm Ltd./Disney Plus

Filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, who directed Chapter 14 of The Mandalorian, will be an executive producer of the show alongside Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni. The character of Boba Fett was introduced to the audiences in 1980’s Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back and has been a fan favorite ever since.

Release date: December 2021.

And More on the Horizon

A bit up in the air are Star Wars shows Ahsoka, Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Rangers of the New Republic, which were all confirmed by Disney at the end of 2020 and set to be released on Disney Plus. The Rogue One prequel TV show Andor, starring Diego Luna, will be released in 2022.

Photo Courtesy: @Pixar/Twitter

For theatergoers, Disney is also set to release Pixar’s Luca (June 18, 2021), the live-action adaptation of Cruella starting Emma Stone (May 28, 2021), Marvel’s Black Widow (May 7, 2021), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (July 9, 2021) and Eternals (Nov. 5, 2021). But in case of sustained theater closures in 2021 caused by the pandemic, that could force more simultaneous releases of movies on their streaming service.

And of course, apart from the new content, you can just keep your Disney Plus subscription for its existing catalog. Watch Hamilton one more time. Who doesn’t need to enjoy Lin-Manuel Miranda singing “My Shot ” for the thousandth time?