It might not be Matt Groening‘s dream Simpsons-meets-Planet of the Apes feature, but Springfield’s favorite family is coming back to the big screen — and we got our first glimpse at Disney’s D23 fan expo.
Bart Simpson crashed the Disney Entertainment Showcase event on Friday for some playful banter with Disney President Dana Walden designed to plug The New Simpsons Movie, which is targeting a September 2027 release — 20 years after the show’s first cinematic offering.
“It’s great to be here; it’s great to be anywhere away from home,” Bart cracked from the Honda Center’s massive video screen. “You know, Dana, we have a lot in common. We’re both funny. We don’t take guff from anyone, and neither of us has aged in 40 years. I have to ask, who draws you?”
“Thanks a lot, Bart.” Walden replied. “Now, D23 fans, Bart’s here tonight because he has something very special to show. He and his family have been hard at work on our Simpsons movie, and he wanted to give you a sneak peek. This film doesn’t come out until next September, so what you’re going to see is very rough. We normally wouldn’t show you something that’s early, but Bart insisted. And when we saw this footage, we agreed you’re the perfect audience to see it first. Enjoy.”
Unlike San Diego Comic-Con, which discourages fans from capturing video of unreleased clips, D23’s security allowed fans to shoot away, meaning it was only a matter of minutes before the sequence, showing Homer and virtually every denizen of Springfield fighting over a prized home run ball, made its way to social media.
Plot details are as sketchy as the first footage. Simpsons mastermind Matt Groening teased the movie at San Diego Comic-Con in 2025. “I shouldn’t say this,” Groening dead-panned, “but I wanted to make a Simpsons movie that was the Planets of the Apes musical. All we need is the rights to Planet of the Apes.”
Groening has an affinity for the sci-fi classic, notably offering a taste of an Apes musical — titled Stop the Planet of the Apes, I Want to Get Off! and featuring the Troy McClure-crooned banger “Dr. Zaius” — via the classic Season 7 episode “A Fish Called Selma” in 1996.
Alas, he was goofing about the subject matter… we think.
Asked if there was really a chance to do another Simpsons movie, showrunner Matt Selman said, “There are lots of great new technologies out there that would be fun to mess around with. I’ll say that.”
The New Simpsons Movie has the chance to do something the original couldn’t. While the 2007 film scored Best Animated Feature nods at the BAFTAs, Producers Guild, Golden Globes, Critics Choice, and Annie Awards, it was memorably snubbed by the Oscars.
The first film based on the Fox series that has won 37 Emmy Awards (from 104 nominations) since 1989 didn’t manage to crack what was then a field of three contenders. For those keeping score at home, that was the year that Brad Bird’s Pixar joint Ratatouille topped Sony Pictures Classcis’s adaptation of Persepolis and Sony’s largely forgotten mockumentary parody, Surf’s Up.
