The Imagineering Story Season 2 is filming now for Disney+
Disney confirmed a second season of The Imagineering Story during the Horizons showcase at D23, with Leslie Iwerks back and cameras already rolling. Season 1 looked backward at Imagineering history. This one follows projects being built right now.
Seven years after the first one, Imagineering is getting its sequel.
Leslie Iwerks took the stage during Horizons: A Carousel of Progress at D23 on August 15, alongside Walt Disney Imagineering president and chief creative officer Bruce Vaughn, to confirm that a second season of The Imagineering Story is officially in production for Disney+.
Cameras are already rolling. A sneak peek ran for the crowd at the Honda Center.
Season 2 is being filmed as the projects get built
The first season was a history lesson. This one is a stakeout.
The Imagineering Story debuted in 2019 as a six-part series narrated by Angela Bassett, tracing decades of Walt Disney Imagineering from Disneyland’s origins forward. It was archival, retrospective, built out of what had already happened.
Season 2 flips that. Iwerks has been embedded while Disney’s current wave of projects moves from concept art to construction site, which means the footage exists because someone was standing there when it happened rather than digging it out of a vault later.
“So a few years ago when it was revealed that dozens of new projects were on the way, you and I started talking about how there may be a new chapter in this tale,” Iwerks told Vaughn onstage. “Turns out, there are several.”
Vaughn said she’s had unprecedented behind-the-scenes access throughout. For viewers, the promise is seeing not just what Imagineers are building but how they arrive at it.
When Season 2 actually arrives is unclear
Disney’s post says two different things. Early on, it states that the first few episodes will debut on Disney+ next year, which would mean 2027. At the end, it says Season 2 debuts in 2028.
Both sentences are in the same announcement. Neither has been clarified.
It’s possible those reconcile as a staggered rollout, with early episodes arriving first and the full season landing later. It’s also possible one is simply an error. Disney hasn’t said, and other outlets covering the announcement have mostly just reported that filming is underway without committing to either date.
So the honest status is: in production now, arriving sometime between 2027 and 2028, with Disney’s own materials disagreeing on which.
Leslie Iwerks has been around Imagineers her whole life
The choice of filmmaker isn’t a coincidence, and the family story behind it runs nearly a century deep.
Iwerks is the granddaughter of Ub Iwerks, Walt Disney’s original animator and the co-creator of Mickey Mouse, the man who animated Steamboat Willie. Her father was the late Don Iwerks, a camera technician and inventor who spent decades pushing Disney’s technical boundaries. Both were Oscar winners. Both are Disney Legends.
“I was really raised by Imagineers,” she told the D23 crowd.
Her filmography backs that up. Beyond The Imagineering Story, she directed The Pixar Story, Industrial Light & Magic: Creating the Impossible, Disneyland Handcrafted, and The Hand Behind the Mouse, a documentary about her own grandfather.
She also has another one arriving in days. Disney Worldbuilders premieres at D23 on August 16 and hits Disney+ on August 20.
Disney Legends joined Vaughn onstage
Before the announcement, Vaughn brought out a row of people whose work fills the first season.
Tony Baxter, Wing Chao, Robert Coltrin, Bob Gurr, Joe Rohde, and Kim Irvine all joined him, a lineup covering everything from Big Thunder Mountain to Animal Kingdom to the Autopia cars.
Vaughn traced Imagineering’s roots back to the team Walt assembled to build Disneyland, an operation now approaching 75 years old.
Which is roughly the point of doing this again. The first season explained how Disney got here. The second one is being shot while the next part is still wet.
Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
Disney Parks Blog (August 15, 2026), the official Season 2 announcement from the Horizons showcase, the Iwerks and Vaughn quotes, the Disney Legends onstage, and both stated release timeframes
ABC7 Los Angeles (August 15, 2026), confirmation that Season 2 is currently filming and that a sneak peek screened during the showcase
WDW News Today (July 2026), the Iwerks family background and Don Iwerks’ passing
Laughing Place and Wikipedia (retrieved August 16, 2026), Season 1’s 2019 run, episode count, and Angela Bassett narration, plus the Disney Worldbuilders release date