Benjamin Bratt Returns as Ernesto de la Cruz in Coco 2, Eyeing 2029 Release
Benjamin Bratt will reprise his role as the voice of Ernesto de la Cruz in Pixar's Coco 2, the actor announced at D23 on 15 August 2026 (Deadline).
The sequel sends Ernesto — the charlatan musician who turned out to have stolen his greatest songs — back for revenge against Miguel, the young boy who exposed him. That boy is no longer so young: Miguel is now a teenager in the new film (Deadline).
Disney CEO Bob Iger first announced the Coco sequel in March 2025, during the company's annual shareholder meeting. Pixar's Lee Unkrich, who co-directed the original, is scheduled to appear at this year's D23 fan event, signing complimentary Coco artwork for attendees (D23).
The original Coco opened in theatres on 22 November 2017. Bratt voiced Ernesto de la Cruz, the glittering superstar of the Land of the Dead; Anthony Gonzalez voiced Miguel Rivera, the twelve-year-old who crossed into the afterlife on Día de los Muertos. The film grossed over $814 million worldwide and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Coco 2 is eyeing a 2029 theatrical release, placing it roughly twelve years after the first film — a gap that tracks neatly with Miguel's ageing on screen (Deadline).
Beyond the cinema, Coco is also joining the Kingdom Hearts franchise. The world of the film will appear in the next instalment of the Disney-Square Enix role-playing series, also announced at D23 (Deadline).
For fans, the D23 announcements bring the first concrete details of a sequel that has been little more than a title since Iger's 2025 reveal. A vengeful Ernesto stalking a teenage Miguel reframes the story from a tale of family memory into something closer to a ghost-story rematch — and it gives Bratt, whose performance as the preening, scheming de la Cruz was one of the original's most popular elements, a clear lane back into the spotlight.
