Mark Hamill Takes Darkwing Duck After a 35-Year Silence

Disney Plus ordered a new Darkwing Duck animated series on September 22, 2026, with Mark Hamill voicing Drake Mallard, the caped mallard of St. Canard.

The studio logline parks him in an alternate world that has never heard of his exploits, a gap it measures at 35 years. Jim Cummings, who originated that voice in 1991 and later recorded a test pilot for this revival, is not in the cast.

A Series Order After 35 Years in the Dark

Disney Television Animation posted the order with the old catchphrase and a first look at a duck in a wide purple hat stepping out of blue smoke.

Let’s get dangerous! ⚡️Darkwing Duck is back with an all-new animated series for Disney+ pic.twitter.com/1J5dE3LCny

— Disney TVA (@DisneyTVA) September 22, 2026

Sean Tretta, a writer and executive producer on Star Trek: Picard, and Borja Peña Gorostegui of Lost & Crowned are the writers and executive producers. Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, James Weaver, Alex McAtee, and Gabby Grantham produce for Point Grey Pictures, which has been attached since a November 2020 development report. Tad Stones, who created the 1991 show, consulted on the new one.

Disney’s own plot is blunt. “For the last 35 years, Darkwing Duck has been trapped in his worst nightmare: an alternate world that’s never heard of his superhero exploits. Now a rebellious teen named Duckie who knows all about his heroic past shows up to pull this ego-fueled vigilante back into battle. Together, this unlikely duo will get dangerous to fight old enemies like Negaduck and Megavolt and reunite with allies Launchpad, Gosalyn and Morgana to save the entire universe.”

Point Grey answered the assignment in one line. “Disney said ‘Let’s get dangerous and we said ‘hell yeah.’”

No episode count and no premiere date came with the order. Hamill is the news the studio led with. The plot it attached to him is a forgotten hero who needs a teenager to remind the universe he exists.

Jim Cummings Recorded a Pilot, Then Lost the Part

Cummings was Darkwing Duck for the entire original run, and he later played an aging on-screen version of the part inside the 2017 DuckTales series. On the Coyote vs. Acme red carpet, speaking on August 28, 2026, he said he had already put this revival on tape.

I did a pilot for it several years ago, to see the viability of it coming back, and everybody went nuts. And they are bringing it back, and they’re hiring somebody else to do Terry McGovern’s role of Launchpad, and they’re hiring somebody else to be Darkwing Duck. I hope they get…everything they deserve. Crazy, I don’t know what to tell you.

Jim Cummings, original Darkwing Duck, on the Coyote vs. Acme red carpet

That is the bill for a signature cartoon role. Cummings had discussed his own 25 years as Darkwing with Disney’s fan club long before this order, and he won a 1992 Annie Award for the voice. He is still working. He even recorded the proof-of-concept. The studio hired Hamill anyway.

Hamill is not a younger stand-in. He is the longtime voice of the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series and the Arkham games, a theatrical showman with a famous cackle. Darkwing is also a showman. He wants the spotlight, coins a new entrance line every time he appears, and treats crime-fighting as a performance. That overlap is the casting logic, whether anyone who grew up on Cummings wants it.

The first argument under Disney’s own post went at the recast, not the greenlight. People who still hear Cummings in the fedora did not read Hamill as a fresh take. They read a star voice replacing a signature voice after a pilot that, Cummings said, made everyone go nuts.

DuckTales Already Put the Recast on Screen

Disney has already told this story as entertainment. In the May 17, 2019 DuckTales episode “The Duck Knight Returns!,” Darkwing Duck is an old television show inside another old television show. Cummings voices Jim Starling, the fading actor who played the hero and did his own stunts. Chris Diamantopoulos voices Drake Mallard, a fan hired to replace him in a grim new movie.

Starling sabotages the set, tries to take the cape back, and crawls out of the wreckage as Negaduck. Launchpad McQuack tells Mallard to become Darkwing for Jim. The joke is aimed at every grim reboot, and it is also a joke about dumping the original voice. A kid who only knows the 2017 series already watched Cummings get replaced, go mad, and come back as the villain.

The DuckTales staff later pitched a Darkwing spin-off from that version. The studio passed and stayed with Point Grey. Stones has said for years that his show and DuckTales live in different duck universes, so a 2026 series that drops Drake into a world with no memory of him is, in a way, following his own map. It is also a convenient way to ignore the Diamantopoulos Darkwing that already had new episodes on the same service.

The Long Stall From a 2020 Report to a Series Order

Point Grey’s name has been on this duck since before most of the new cast was in high school for a 1991 cartoon. The order on September 22 closed a file that had been open, stalled, and reopened.

THE LONG WAY BACK TO ST. CANARD

1. April 6, 1991: Darkwing Duck begins a preview run on The Disney Channel after a March 31 sneak, then hits syndication that September.
2. December 12, 1992: The last of 91 episodes airs on ABC, ending a three-season production burst that overlapped syndication and Saturday mornings.
3. May 17, 2019: DuckTales stages the in-universe recast, with Cummings as the discarded original actor and Diamantopoulos as the new Drake Mallard.
4. November 13, 2020: Point Grey is reported as the producer of a Darkwing project in early development at Disney Plus, with no writer attached yet.
5. 2024: Stones says the first writers room has been disbanded and the series is still alive at Point Grey after a 2022 claim that it had been killed.
6. August 28, 2026: Cummings says he recorded a pilot years earlier and that both Darkwing and Launchpad are being recast.
7. September 22, 2026: Disney Plus orders the series, names Hamill, and publishes the 35-year forgotten-world logline.

Tretta’s last high-profile credit is Picard’s third season, a late sequel about old heroes who still work. That is the job here too, except the original lead is not invited back to play the original lead. Stones remains as a consultant, which is a blessing and a buffer. He can praise the new team without having to recast himself.

Who Is Duckie in This Version?

Duckie is the character the 1991 series did not have, and she is doing the work the marketing department used to do. Lilimar, who voiced Val in Inside Out 2, plays a rebellious teen who already knows the heroic past. She pulls an “ego-fueled vigilante” back into the cape in a world that never heard of him. Gosalyn Mallard still exists in this version, now voiced by Lizzy Caplan. Duckie is extra. She is the viewer who streamed the old show and is willing to explain it.

That is how a 1991 syndication hero gets into a 2026 kids’ queue. The original Gosalyn was a nine-year-old adopted daughter in a suburban house next to the Muddlefoots. Caplan is an adult actor on a series that also has to reintroduce Launchpad, Morgana, Negaduck, and Megavolt. Duckie is the shortcut. She arrives pre-loaded with lore so Hamill’s Drake can be rusty, vain, and forgotten without a half-hour of clips from 1991.

THE NEW VOICES AGAINST THE OLD ONES

Cavanaugh, who originated Gosalyn, died in 2014, so that recast was coming no matter who produced the show. McGovern is alive, and Cummings named him in the same breath as his own replacement. Rogen is both Launchpad and a Point Grey producer, which puts the new sidekick in the room where the old one was let go.

Negaduck Returns Without a Named Voice

The logline brings back the villains and the girlfriend and then stops naming actors. Disney filled the new sheet instead.

STILL WAITING ON A MICROPHONE

• Glade McTowers: Dan Stevens, of Onslaught, is the named new presence who reads as a threat from the credit alone.
• Rosa: Tiffany Shepis, from Picard, joins a cast that already shares a Star Trek producer in Tretta.
• Firecracker: Kathryn Newton, of Avengers: Doomsday, is another new name with no 1991 counterpart in the announcement.
• Timb and Pondsy: Teo Briones and Tyler Dean Flores round out the younger bench around Duckie.
• Officers Shanks and Webb: Katie Rich of Saturday Night Live and Nat Faxon of The Descendants are the named cops of this St. Canard.

Megavolt, Morgana Macawber, and Negaduck are in the story and out of the press release. In 1991 Cummings voiced Darkwing and his Negaverse double, so the open Negaduck slot is the leftover question from the recast. Disney’s own villains roundup still walks through Negaduck, Megavolt and the rest of that gallery from the 91-episode run. The new series has not said who gets those microphones, or whether Cummings could still walk in as the man who used to wear the other hat.

Tad Stones Files Darkwing Next to Zorro

Stones did not pretend this was a reunion tour. He placed his hero in a pile of characters that other people are allowed to redo.

Like every other fan of the original show, I’m excited to see Darkwing getting dangerous again in a whole new series. The new creative team has certainly amped up the action and comedy without forgetting the Disney heart. This series places DW in the literary tradition of Robin Hood, Zorro, and Sherlock Holmes, heroes whose lore has been reinterpreted by multiple creators in multiple mediums. They explored the core of those characters by tossing them into new eras, new relationships, and even new universes. No matter when or where, Darkwing Duck will appear in a cloud of blue smoke to grab the spotlight.

Tad Stones, Darkwing Duck creator, in Disney’s announcement

The 1991 show was already a pile of other people’s lore. Stones built it after a Double-O-Duck idea lost the Bond-flavored title, then borrowed a masked-mallard gag from DuckTales and dressed Drake like a pulp shadow. St. Canard is a duck Gotham. The gas gun, the fedora, and the entrance speeches are the joke and the engine. Cummings made that engine run for 91 episodes across three seasons, 65 of them in The Disney Afternoon and 13 plus 13 on ABC.

WHAT THE 1991 SHOW STILL IS

• Episode count: 91 half-hours, about 22 minutes each, rated TV-Y7.
• Season split: 65 in syndication from September 6, 1991, to May 20, 1992, then 13 and 13 on ABC through December 12, 1992.
• Theme: Jeff Pescetto sang the title song that the new announcement did not promise to leave alone or to touch.
• Streaming gap: The series has sat on Disney Plus since November 12, 2019, except the pulled episode “Hot Spells.”

Disney still lists the 1991 series as the caped crime fighter of St. Canard, a dad to nine-year-old Gosalyn who keeps the city safe with Launchpad and a belt of gadgets. Those episodes stream on Disney Plus now. Hamill’s version does not have a premiere date. The forgotten-world plot is already honest about the gap. The old show is on the same app, waiting for anyone Duckie is supposed to represent.