New glimpse of Disney and pan-African studio’s Iwájú revealed at D23

Updated Sep. 8, 2022Disney showed a first-look image of the D23 exhibit in 2022. Iwájú, The two young protagonists are shown with a futuristic-looking creature lizard, and flying drones surrounding them. Disney Plus will premiere the show sometime around 2023.

Disney and Pan-African entertainment firm Kugali announced last December that they would collaborate to produce an animated series of science-fiction for Disney Plus. Imagine a futuristic Lagos, Nigeria. IwájúWe would be exploring the notions of class, innocence, as well as challenging the status-quo.

At this year’s Annecy Festival, the creative leaders at Disney and Kugali came together to talk more about IwájúThe collaboration between these two companies. Kugali started as a podcast by three Nigerian friends. But co-founder Ziki Nelson realized after two seasons of the show that he’d basically covered everything of interest in the African cultural landscape.

“We realized what the community needed wasn’t actually someone to talk about the content,” he explained. “They needed someone to actually create that content.”

It’s rare for Disney Animation to partner this way with another studio, considering how tight its in-house production has become over nearly a century.

“When I first came to Disney, everything was created in house,” said Disney’s Chief Creative Officer and Frozen screenwriter Jennifer Lee. “The animation, the craft, the storytelling, it’s fantastic. It was amazing to be in that world. But I noticed a lack of diversity.”

Lee, a woman herself, said that her position as CCO was an important step. But she now wants to go further. One of her big initiatives in her relatively new role is to “tell the stories of the word, but by people of the world.” She first stumbled upon Kugali while sipping her morning coffee and reading the news, when a BBC headline caught her eye: “The African comic book Kugali hoping to take on Disney.”

“They said they were going to kick Disney’s … you know what,” Lee said. “And I was like, OK! Let’s connect.”

After the BBC interview became viral, Nelson and Hamid Ibrahim, the production designer, received messages via LinkedIn from Disney.

“First we couldn’t believe it was Disney,” Ibrahim said. “The second thought was OK, I just called out Disney… someone at Disney just mailed us… oh man, they’re coming for me.”

Image: Disney/Kugali

No one was coming for Kugali — at least not in the way Ibrahim feared. Nelson was skeptical, even though Disney was open to a partnership. Nelson was skeptical at first, believing this to be a conversation between Disney and other studios.

“From one meeting it turned to two meetings to three meetings to four meetings,” he recounted. “I think that level of investment, you know someone doesn’t meet up with you over multiple periods across time if they’re just looking to waste time.”

Tolu Olowofoyeku (creative consultant) said that as time went by, the two founding partners realized that Disney had a genuine interest in making collaborations happen. And it wasn’t just Disney trying to project its visions onto Kulagi. Disney actually made an effort to create a real partnership.

“They taught us How to pitch to them,” Olowofoyeku said. “They didn’t just leave us like, ‘OK, give a pitch, go.’ They taught us, ‘This is howGive a pitch Get it now go.’”

Lee stated that Kugali was originally conceived to collaborate on short films, but Lee was so inspired by Kugali’s storytelling skills she decided to create a complete-length series.

“There were stories with themes I had never put together that way, there were folklore that I never had access to,” she explained. “They came in with these ideas, each one of them was an epic feature in and of itself. The one we liked best could be made into a series. It was simply too exhilarating. Their storytelling power and strength is just so strong.”

Iwájú Disney Plus is expected to release it in 2022.

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