‘Descendants: The Rise of Red’ Reveals the Time-Twisting Trailer for the New Disney+ Film

The latest installment in the Descendants franchise is almost here, and in advance of the July 12 premiere date, Disney+ has revealed the first trailer for the movie. And not only does it feature singing and dancing Disney characters, but there’s a whole Back to the Future style plot, as well.

In the movie, Uma (China Anne McClain) makes a critical error when she invites Red (Kylie Cantrall), the daughter of the Queen of Hearts (Rita Ora) to join Auradon, the school for kids of villains and heroes in the Descendants universe. Initially spurned by the school, the Queen of Hearts launches a coup and, uh, seemingly decapitates Cinderella (Brandy), which is pretty dark for a Disney movie. Or maybe not! Parents are dying all the time in those things.

In any case, after everything goes wrong, Red and Chloe Charming (Malia Baker) have to team up to go back in time to when the school was Merlin Academy, and figure out where the Queen of Hearts (played in younger version by Ruby Rose Turner) went wrong.

The movie also stars Jeremy Swift, Dara Reneé, Morgan Dudley, Paolo Montalban, Melanie Paxson, Leonardo Nam, Joshua Colley, and Peder Lindell, and features seven new songs.

In addition, it includes “What’s My Name,” a hit from the Descendants canon, which you can hear snippets of in the trailer, and “So This is Love” from Cinderella, hopefully sung by Brandy, but TBD.

Perhaps of note, this is the first Descendants movie not directed by Disney icon Kenny Ortega, which raises a few alarm bells. However, Jennifer Phang, who takes over here, is a veteran of TV and film directing including Stargirl, Riverdale, The Boys, Cloak & Dagger and a slew more. Plus the dancing looks good and consistent with the rest of the series – along with the amazingly hideous wigs – so we should be in good hands here.

Descendants: The Rise of Red premieres Friday, July 12 on Disney+, with an encore presentation airing Friday, August 9 at 8 pm ET / PT on Disney Channel. Watch the trailer below: