disney-animation-studios" rel="tag">Walt Disney Animation Studios has released the first trailer for Hexed, putting the film on public display for the first time and setting its Nov. 25 release date in motion. Rashida Jones voices Alice, Billie’s seemingly ordinary suburban mother, in the studio’s latest animated adventure.
The two-minute trailer centers on Billie, voiced by Hailee Steinfeld, as she moves through high school, discovers powers in a bathroom and then leaves her old life behind for a magical mystery tour in an otherworldly realm. Disney’s logline says Billie accidentally unleashes secret magical abilities, is hurled out of suburbia and into Hexe, and meets Ms. Quill and Elias Quire there.
That gives Disney what it wants from a first look: a clean setup for a traditional holiday animated blockbuster with a family mystery at its core. The film is directed by Fawn Veerasunthorn and Jason Hand, produced by Roy Conli and Yvett Merino, and co-directed by Josie Trinidad. Tracey Ullman voices Ms. Quill, while Stephen Fry voices the talking journal Elias Quire, giving the trailer a cast built to sell both comedy and scale.
But the awards pitch hangs over the rollout just as clearly as the holiday release plan. Disney is positioning Hexed as one of three animated features in its Best Animated Feature push, alongside Hoppers and Toy Story 5, even though no Disney Animation Studios film has won that category since Encanto in 2022. Strange World, Wish and Moana 2 were all left out in later years, a reminder that a trailer can create momentum, but not immunity.
For now, the trailer answers the biggest question around Hexed: this is not just a suburban coming-of-age story with magic layered on top. It is a family mystery built to travel from Billie’s ordinary world into Hexe, and the next question is how much of the film will belong to the people she leaves behind when the magic starts.
