Nearly 20 years after Homer Simpson trapped Springfield beneath a giant glass dome, The Simpsons Movie 2 is officially heading to cinemas, and Disney has now revealed the first footage from the long-awaited sequel at D23.
There are certain moments in life that you simply cannot prepare yourself for. Your wedding day. The birth of your first child. Finding out that The Simpsons Movie 2 actually exists, has footage, and will be arriving in cinemas almost exactly 20 years after Bart Simpson explicitly promised us we would not have to wait that long.
As somebody who owns an unreasonable amount of Simpsons clothing, toys and crockery, and who is close friends with Lisa Simpson herself, Yeardley Smith, I feel like the last three decades of my life have essentially been an extremely elaborate training programme for this exact moment.
Disney, whenever you are ready to discuss who is hosting the premiere, my diary is suspiciously clear.
Disney Reveals the First Footage From The Simpsons Movie 2 at D23
Disney gave fans their first proper taste of The New Simpsons Movie during its huge D23 showcase, finally showing footage from the sequel after years of speculation about whether Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie would ever make it back to the big screen. The film is currently scheduled to arrive in cinemas on September 3, 2027, almost exactly two decades after the original movie was released in 2007.
That 20-year gap becomes significantly funnier when you remember one of the jokes hidden in the original movie. During the opening sequence, Bart is forced to write ‘I will not illegally download this movie’ on the school chalkboard, while a later gag has him promise not to wait 20 years to make another one. Two decades later, Hollywood development has once again defeated a ten-year-old child.
The footage shown at D23 apparently wastes absolutely no time getting Springfield into another completely unnecessary crisis. Homer and seemingly half the town find themselves pursuing a runaway baseball, in a giant escalating chase that sounds pleasingly reminiscent of the classic Season 3 episode Homer at the Bat. For anyone at Disney currently compiling my qualifications to host the premiere, that is Season 3, Episode 17. You are welcome.
Things inevitably become increasingly ridiculous as the ball makes its way through Springfield, including a trip into Moe’s Tavern where one of Moe’s pickled eggs is briefly mistaken for it. The chase then continues through an emergency room, out onto the streets and eventually into the Duff Brewery. It is the sort of sequence that allows Springfield itself to become part of the joke, bouncing from one familiar location to another while dragging increasingly more characters into the madness.
And where there is Duff, there is Homer Simpson. The chase reportedly ends with Homer plunging into a gigantic vat of beer before eventually being blasted out through a smokestack and sent flying all the way back towards the baseball stadium. After an enormous amount of destruction, danger and effort, Bart simply retrieves the ball, prompting Homer and the rest of Springfield to deliver one enormous collective “D’oh!”
It is only an early glimpse at what the filmmakers have planned, and Disney has yet to reveal a full plot synopsis for The New Simpsons Movie. What the footage does suggest, however, is that the sequel understands one of the most important things about translating The Simpsons to cinema: making everything bigger does not mean abandoning the beautifully stupid simplicity of the show. Sometimes you really can build an enormous theatrical set piece around Homer Simpson trying to catch a baseball.
The Simpsons Is Heading Back to Cinemas 20 Years After the Original Movie
It is difficult to overstate just how ridiculous the longevity of The Simpsons has become. What began as shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show developed into its own series in 1989 and subsequently became one of the most influential television comedies ever made, creating characters, catchphrases and jokes that have survived multiple generations.
Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie eventually made the jump to cinemas with The Simpsons Movie in 2007, directed by longtime Simpsons animator and director David Silverman. The film took an appropriately enormous approach to the series, with Homer accidentally contaminating Springfield’s water supply and causing the Environmental Protection Agency to imprison the entire town beneath a gigantic glass dome.
What followed gave us Spider-Pig, Bart skateboarding completely naked through Springfield, President Schwarzenegger, an angry mob attempting to murder Homer and, somehow, Tom Hanks advertising a new Grand Canyon. The film also proved that audiences were more than willing to pay for something they had been watching on television for almost two decades, ultimately earning more than $500 million worldwide.
Perhaps the greatest tease, however, arrived right at the end. During the credits, Maggie removes her dummy and says a single word: “Sequel?” At the time it felt like a joke. Twenty years later, it turns out Maggie Simpson was apparently announcing 20th Century Studios’ long-term release strategy.
The sequel was finally officially announced in 2025 with artwork showing Homer reaching for another pink doughnut alongside the wonderfully simple tagline “Homer’s coming back for seconds.” Its original July 2027 release was subsequently moved to September 3, 2027, meaning Springfield’s second theatrical adventure will arrive just over 20 years after the first.
Yeardley Smith Already Told Me What She Wanted From The Simpsons Movie 2
There is one particularly lovely thing about finally being able to write about The New Simpsons Movie: years before the sequel was officially announced, I asked Yeardley Smith about precisely this possibility, and the voice of Lisa Simpson was considerably more confident about it happening than the rest of us.
When I interviewed Yeardley for The Movie Dweeb in 2022, I asked her about another big-screen adventure for the Simpsons family. She did not just tell me she believed another movie would eventually happen; she already had her pitch ready.
“I do really believe that there will be a number two,” Yeardley told me, before revealing her idea: “My pitch is that it should be a Christmas movie, so that it has annual relevance for the rest of time.”
And the more I think about it, the more I desperately want somebody at Disney to have listened to her. The Simpsons and Christmas have been connected from the very beginning: the first full episode broadcast was Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire in December 1989, which introduced audiences to Santa’s Little Helper and established the family dynamic that has somehow survived for nearly four decades.
A Christmas setting would also give a second movie exactly the sort of identity that could separate it from the original. Springfield covered in snow, Mr Burns discovering a new reason to hate Christmas, Homer desperately attempting to acquire the perfect present for Marge and Ralph Wiggum presumably licking a frozen lamppost are all things I would happily pay an irresponsible amount of money to watch.
We do not yet know whether Yeardley got her Christmas wish. The baseball footage certainly does not scream December, unless Springfield has recently developed an unusually competitive festive baseball league. However, the fact that she confidently told me there would be a second movie years before Disney officially announced one means I am choosing to trust her powers of prediction.
And there is something wonderfully fitting about The Simpsons returning to cinemas now. The show has been declared past its prime, finished, irrelevant and about to end more times than Comic Book Guy has complained about something on the internet, yet Springfield continues to survive.
Now it is getting another movie.
The New Simpsons Movie arrives in cinemas on September 3, 2027.
And Disney, once again, I am available for the premiere. Carpet, stage, press line, inside an enormous pink doughnut, wherever you need me.
Just please don’t make me wait another 20 years. I’ll be 53, and my Milhouse cosplay will be considerably harder to pull off.