Is Disney’s ‘Tiana’ show still happening?

With a new major Tiana-themed ride opening at Walt Disney World in late June, The Princess and the Frog is on everyone’s minds and lips again.

The 2009 animated movie introduced Disney’s first African-American princess, and is considered an underrated gem to this day thanks to its rich, vibrant New Orleans-set animation and story. Similarly, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is the first The Princess and the Frog–themed ride to open at Disney’s several parks, 15 whole years since the film originally premiered. Mama Odie actress Jennifer Lewis provided new dialogue for her character’s animatronic counterpart.

The ride is replacing Splash Mountain, which became the object of controversy in 2020 thanks to the racially-charged film that inspired it, 1946’s Song of the South. Turning it into an attraction that celebrates Disney’s first Black princess is as much a marketing move as anything on Disney’s part, but it could also bode well for the future of a rumored spin-off series that was promised to premiere on Disney Plus back in 2022.

Whatever happened to the Tiana Disney Plus show?

With Disney throwing us all a curveball by announcing a sequel to Moana in 2024, on top of a packed schedule of live-action remakes, the Tiana Disney Plus show has slipped through the cracks. It was first announced as a spin-off to The Princess and the Frog in 2020, but there were no big developments associated with it until late 2023.

In October of that year, Variety reported that Midnight Mass‘s Joyce Sherri would be replacing The Photograph‘s Stella Meghie as the lead writer and director of the musical animated series, which meant the original 2022 release window would be delayed again to 2024. Meghie had originally been tied to the role in a 2022 The Hollywood Reporter article.

Despite a lack of relevant updates since, everything suggests that the show is still under development at Disney and that Anika Noni Rose, the actor who voiced Tiana in the 2009 film, is seemingly also still attached to the project to reprise the role of the New Orleanian princess.

The reason why the opening of the Disney World ride could be a sign that the series is still very much a part of the studio’s plans is that, much like the parts of its plot that were teased, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure also follows the princess’s life after the events of the film.

The official description for the Tiana animated series promised a “grand new adventure” following her coronation as the princess of Maldonia, all the while keeping New Orleans close to her heart. Maybe Disney plans to celebrate the opening of their brand new attraction with a release date update for the hopefully forthcoming Tiana Disney Plus musical animated series.