Disney’s next original animated film is not about a princess, a mermaid, or a talking toy. It’s about a teenage girl who discovers she’s a witch, her overprotective mother, and a three-eyed cat named Beef Roger. And it’s arriving just in time for Thanksgiving.
Hexed is the latest original feature from Walt Disney Animation Studios, and it’s shaping up to be one of the studio’s most emotionally grounded and visually ambitious films in years. Here’s everything you need to know before it hits theaters.
What Is Hexed About?
The film follows Billie Doe (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld), a 16-year-old who is impulsive, misunderstood, and unconventional. She’s never understood why her mother, Alice (Rashida Jones), is so overprotective — or why there are so many rules.
The answer, it turns out, is magic. Billie discovers she has secret magical abilities, and before she can process what that means, she’s transported from the mundane suburbs to Hexe, a vast and spectacle-filled realm of witches.
Alice, who had suppressed Billie’s abilities since childhood, follows her into Hexe. As mother and daughter navigate this strange new world together, they uncover long-buried family mysteries that threaten to upend the world of witches.
What begins as a disconnected relationship evolves into something neither expected: a magical opportunity to see each other clearly, for the first time.
The film’s creative team has been clear that this mother-daughter dynamic is the heart of the story. “The animated feature wanted to be a mother-daughter story,” said Jared Bush, Disney’s Chief Creative Officer and co-writer. “The goal was making sure that their relationship was actually the star of the film”.
The Voice Cast: A Murderer’s Row of Talent
Disney has assembled one of its most impressive voice casts in years.
Hailee Steinfeld leads as Billie Doe, the impulsive teenager at the center of the story. Steinfeld is no stranger to animation — she voiced Gwen Stacy in the Spider-Verse films — but Hexed marks her first leading role in a Disney animated feature.
Rashida Jones voices Alice, Billie’s cautious and overprotective mother. The role is a departure for Jones, who is best known for her comedic work, but the film’s creative team has said the emotional core of the story rests on her performance.
Jodie Foster — a two-time Academy Award winner — voices Queen Celeste, the villain of the film. Celeste is described as a “sinister figure determined to keep her hold on Hexe” and “will stop at nothing to maintain her power in perpetuity”.
Walton Goggins voices Beef Roger Crummchuk, a reclusive three-eyed magical cat who forms an uneasy alliance with Billie and Alice. Goggins’ character can take off his head and spin it around — think the Genie in Aladdin or any character from Disney’s original Alice in Wonderland.
The supporting cast is equally stacked:
Henry Winkler as Nigel, a skittish, all-knowing potoo bird who holds powerful secrets to the magical world
Dan Stevens as Hieronymous, Queen Celeste’s blustering, self-important Grand Councillor of the Throne
Tracey Ullman as Ms. Quill, an enchanted feather quill pen
Stephen Fry as Elias Quire, a magical journal
Pat McAfee as Rat McAfee
The Creative Team: Disney’s Best and Brightest
Hexed is directed by Fawn Veerasunthorn (Wish) and Jason Hand (Moana 2), with Josie Trinidad (Zootopia) serving as co-director.
The film is produced by Roy Conli and Yvett Merino, both Academy Award winners. Conli has been with the project for about three and a half years, shepherding it from development through production. Merino joined after finishing Zootopia 2, and described the opportunity as “thrilling”.
The screenplay was written by Jared Bush, Disney Animation’s Chief Creative Officer, and Dana Ledoux Miller. Bush has been a creative force behind Zootopia, Encanto, and Moana, and his involvement signals that Hexed is a priority for the studio.
The Music: A Different Approach
Disney has been unusually quiet about Hexed‘s soundtrack, and according to fan discussions, the film will use music differently from most Disney titles.
What we do know is that the first teaser trailer featured Miley Cyrus and Stevie Nicks’ “Edge of Midnight” — a track heavily based on Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen” — as its soundtrack. Whether the film itself will be a traditional musical or use music in a more unconventional way remains unclear.
The Trailer: A Glimpse of the Magic
The official trailer, released on October 12, 2026, introduces Billie as she discovers her powers and is hurtled into Hexe. It shows her running through her first spell lesson — a three-step chant of “intention, ignition, inwitchification” — before Hexe turns on her as an outsider and sends mother and daughter on the run.
The trailer also introduces the film’s supporting characters, including Ms. Quill, Elias Quire, and Beef Roger, who expand the world Billie enters and add to the mystery surrounding her journey.
Release Date and Running Time
Hexed opens exclusively in theaters on Wednesday, November 25, 2026 — just in time for Thanksgiving.
The running time has been reported at approximately 99 minutes (1 hour 39 minutes), making it one of Disney Animation’s shorter recent features.
Why Hexed Matters
Hexed represents something Disney hasn’t done in a while: an original, non-franchise animated film with a wholly new world and characters. It’s not a sequel, not a remake, and not based on a pre-existing property. It’s a gamble on original storytelling — the kind of gamble that gave us Moana, Encanto, and Zootopia.
The film’s creative team has spoken about taking “big swings” and leaning into darker territory than typical Disney fare. The witch realm of Hexe is described as “beautiful-yet-dangerous,” and Queen Celeste is a villain who will stop at nothing to maintain her power.
At its core, though, Hexed is a story about family. About a mother and daughter who have spent years misunderstanding each other, and who finally have the chance to see each other clearly. That’s the emotional foundation the filmmakers have built everything else upon.
“We hope parents watch this and say, ‘Oh, man! This feels like me and my child,'” Bush said. “Maybe they’ll feel like, ‘When I grew up, I felt like Billie did, but now that I’m a parent, I’m understanding what my parents were going through'”.
Hexed is Disney
Animation’s biggest original swing of 2026. With a stellar voice cast, an Oscar-winning creative team, and a story that promises both magical spectacle and genuine emotional depth, it has all the ingredients of a modern Disney classic.
It arrives in theaters on November 25, 2026. Whether it becomes the next Encanto or the next Strange World remains to be seen — but based on everything we know so far, it’s worth getting excited about.
