Disney Debuts Trailer For Animated 'Diary Of A Wimpy Kid'

Walt Disney Co. DIS has released a trailer of its new computer-animated feature film version of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” based on the bestselling book series by Jeff Kinney.

What Happened: Kinney’s “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” was first published on the FunBrain website in 2004 and appeared as a hardcover book three years later. The story about the misadventures of always-beleaguered middle school student Greg Heffley launched a popular book franchise series, and Kinney’s work was adapted into a live-action 20th Century Fox film in 2007 that was followed by three sequels.

Kinney wrote and produced the new film, which is the first produced by Disney since its 2019 acquisition of 20th Century Studios in 2019.

Why It Matters: Although the film franchise generated $265 million in worldwide box office from a combined $80 million budget for all four movies, Kinney was not eager for additional live-action productions and had been in development of a Fox Corp FOX television series prior to the Disney acquisition.

But despite the box office track record for Kinney’s material, the new “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” is bypassing theaters and going straight to the Disney+ streaming service for a Dec. 3 premiere; there is no word if Disney will follow the strategy it pursued this summer with “Luca,” its Pixar straight-to-streaming animated feature that played theatrically in foreign markets where Disney+ is unavailable.

Swinton Scott of “Futurama” fame directs the new film, with voice performances by Brady Noon as Greg and Ethan William Childress as his best friend Rowley Jefferson.