An Australian Is Playing Emma Frost in the New X-Men Movie

Disney has finally cast its new X-Men movie, and one of the seven leads grew up in Adelaide. Samara Weaving will play Emma Frost when Marvel's mutants get their own film on 5 May 2028, a line-up confirmed on stage at D23, the studio's fan convention at the Anaheim Convention Center and Honda Center in California, which ran across 14 to 16 August.

She wasn't the only Australian in the room's news. Teagan Croft was unveiled as Rapunzel in the live-action Tangled, due 31 March 2028, opposite Kathryn Hahn as Mother Gothel. And the first trailer for the Australian-made Bluey film played to the same crowd, ahead of a 6 August 2027 release. For a weekend that gets covered here as American studio noise, a surprising amount of it had local fingerprints on it.

The bigger story is what Disney did with the calendar. This wasn't one announcement — it was roughly a dozen release dates nailed down between late 2026 and late 2029, which is the studio telling exhibitors, rivals and anyone booking a cinema screen exactly where it intends to stand for the next three years.

Who's Actually in the New X-Men Movie

Seven names, one director. Jake Schreier is behind the camera. Sadie Sink plays Jean Grey, Kit Connor is Cyclops, Weaving is Emma Frost, Christopher Abbott is Professor X, Inde Navarrette is Rogue and Maya Boyd is Storm. Adam Driver joined the reveal by video as the villain — Variety named the role as Mister Sinister, while the AFP wire report referred to the character as Nathaniel Milbury.

Marvel branded the whole thing with the plain yellow X-in-a-circle from the comics, which is a signal in itself. After years of trying to make mutants fit around existing franchises, this looks like a reset rather than a continuation. Nobody from the twenty-year Fox run is listed.

The Handover Starts Before the Film Does

Here's the detail most summaries skipped: Sadie Sink doesn't debut as Jean Grey in the X-Men film. She plays the character first in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. So the mutants enter through a Spider-Man movie, then get their own, then feed into the crossover — a three-step handoff rather than a single launch.

Before any of that, Avengers: Doomsday arrives on 18 December 2026. Footage shown at D23 had Robert Downey Jr's Doctor Doom swatting Stormbreaker aside, throwing Thor through a wall and raising an army of Sentinels. Nightcrawler and Mystique costumes were on display. The Sentinels matter — they're the machines built to hunt mutants, so the X-Men thread is already running.

Every Date Disney Just Locked In

Laid out year by year, the shape of the plan is easier to read than any single headline. These are the US dates announced on stage; Disney didn't give Australian dates for most of them.

2027: Bluey, Ryan Gosling and a Frozen Wedding

Ice Age: Boiling Point opens 5 February. Ahsoka returns for a second season on 20 January. Star Wars: Starfighter lands 28 May with Ryan Gosling as Kade Auberon under Shawn Levy's direction, set five years after The Rise of Skywalker. The Bluey Movie follows on 6 August. Frozen 3 closes the year on 24 November, built around Anna and Kristoff's wedding and a new villain.

2028: Mutants, Stitch and Rapunzel

The busiest year. Live-action Tangled on 31 March, the X-Men on 5 May, then Lilo & Stitch 2 on 28 May with Maia Kealoha back and Experiment 624 — Angel — joining. Pixar puts Incredibles 3 in June with Violet and Dash pushed to the front, and Ghost Market in spring, directed by Trevor Jimenez, about a Chicago teenager who walks into a supernatural bazaar.

2029: Coco 2 Closes the Run

Coco 2 arrives in November 2029, with Miguel now a teenager and Benjamin Bratt returning as Ernesto de la Cruz. Zootopia 3 was confirmed without a date, with Ginnifer Goodwin and Ke Huy Quan coming back. Disney Animation also slotted in Hexed for 25 November 2026, with Jodie Foster, Hailee Steinfeld and Walton Goggins, and Clay in November 2028 with Kieran Culkin voicing the lead.

Why This Lands Differently in Australia

Two Australians in the same slate is worth noting, but Bluey is the real local stake. A Brisbane-born television series getting a full trailer slot at Disney's own fan event, with a global cinema date, is the strongest signal yet that Ludo Studio's show is being treated as a tentpole rather than a licensing line item.

Practically: dates announced at D23 are US dates, and Disney tentpoles often open in Australia within the same week — sometimes a day or two ahead, thanks to the time difference. Nothing announced this weekend has a confirmed local date yet, so don't book anything around them.

What to Watch For Next

Two things will tell you whether this slate survives contact with reality. The first is Avengers: Doomsday in December — if it underperforms, the 2028 mutant film gets rethought, because studios reshape franchises around results, not announcements. The second is whether these dates hold. Disney has moved Marvel release dates repeatedly over the past few years, and a date three years out is an intention, not a promise.

If you only track one, make it the Bluey trailer and its 2027 date. That one is closest, has the least riding on another film's performance, and is the one most likely to still be sitting exactly where Disney put it. Check for an Australian release date announcement in the first half of 2027 — that's when local dates usually firm up.