Disney has picked up the animated adaptation of Warrior Cats, setting the series up for a 2028 debut on Disney+ and Disney Channel. The project brings Erin Hunter’s feline book series to the screen as a new kids title built around the adventures and drama of multiple clans of feral cats.
The timing matters because the fandom is already large enough to look like a ready-made audience. Disney said Warrior Cats has sold more than 90 million copies, been translated into 38 languages, drawn 50 million views a month across user-generated content on YouTube, and generated nearly 3 billion views on TikTok, while the Roblox game has been played more than 735 million times. That kind of reach gives the studio a familiar name with unusual scale, and it helps explain why Disney+ keeps looking for properties that can arrive with an audience already in place, much as other recent Disney Plus releases have leaned on built-in fan bases.
Ayo Davis said Disney was excited to partner with Coolabi Group to bring Warrior Cats to Disney+ and Disney Channel, underscoring the company’s bet that the books’ following can translate across platforms. AC Bradley created and showran the series, Rodrigo Blaas is directing it, and El Guiri Studios is collaborating on the production. For fans of the books, the immediate answer is simple: the series is not waiting on development limbo, and Disney has already put a year on the calendar.
But the deal also sits inside a business that is never as stable as a headline makes it sound. Neil Court said Warrior Cats insulates the company from the vagaries of what’s happening with the kids television business now, a sharp view of a market that can be precarious even as Disney moves the show into it. At the same time, Original Force is adapting the series for China’s Tencent Video, which means the property is spreading beyond Disney’s lane rather than living inside it.
That leaves one question still open: Disney has the launch year, the platforms and the creative team, but not the episode count or series length. For now, the clearest next step is a 2028 release that will test whether a book franchise with 90 million copies behind it can turn that fandom into a durable TV audience.
