At Friday’s Disney+ Day, the streaming service gave new details about the Princess Tiana series. For The Princess and the Frog spinoff, they’ve tapped one of the most in-demand Black female storytellers who help bring the story to life. 

They also revealed it will premiere in 2023 and released a concept image.

Stella Meghie to write and direct ‘Tiana’

Disney has tapped Meghie, who is behind projects like The Photograph and The Weekend, to write and direct the series. It’ll be a long-form musical series following Tiana. The show will air on Disney+ Day. Per an official release, the show “centers on the newly crowned Princess of Maldonia who hails from New Orleans.” 

Meghie is a mega-fan of the movie, telling ESSENCE in an exclusive interview, “When Princess and the Frog came out, that was the first Black princess, the first Disney icon that I could relate to visually and experience-wise. It was huge. I love jazz. Everything about it was inspiring to me.”

The creative is excited to bring it to television

As excited as Meghie is to be part of this project, she admits it’s a lot of pressure. “It’s a tremendous amount of weight because she means so much,” she recently told ESSENCE. “She’s the only at the moment, really. You have to get it right. The Black community can be very scrutinizing. But I’m not new to this. I’m true to this. I’m used to it and it just really fuels me to work hard to make sure we’re digging really, really deep to make sure we’re getting to the soul of Tiana.”

But Meghie loves working in the animated world. “There’s something about animation that is so freeing,” she explains. “It is very exciting to write whatever you want on the page without worrying about a note that says, ‘We can’t afford this.’ It’s pure imagination. You’re not bogged down by real life, real world themes and you can get to the bottom of certain themes and ideas and adventures. I love writing animation, it’s just blue sky.”

Tiana is set to debut in 2023.