The Spaceship Earth pilot has found its leads. Catherine Laga’aia, who played the title role in Disney’s live-action Moana, and Deacon Phillippe are set to star in the Disney+ pilot inspired by the EPCOT attraction, Deadline reported on October 12. Disney is keeping their characters under wraps.
Disney+ ordered the pilot on August 6. It is a teen science fiction adventure rather than a retelling of the ride: when a mission to stop a global catastrophe goes wrong, a small group of teenagers from different points in Earth’s past and future have to work together against a threat tied to time itself.
Who Catherine Laga’aia And Deacon Phillippe Are
Laga’aia made her film debut as Moana in Thomas Kail’s live-action remake, which Disney released in theaters on July 10, 2026, opposite Dwayne Johnson as Maui. The film has grossed more than $323 million worldwide. Before Moana, she appeared in Prime Video’s limited series The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart. She is the daughter of actor Jay Laga’aia.
Phillippe, the son of Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe, made his feature film acting debut in Brother Save Us, an indie sci-fi thriller in which he plays a farmer in a dystopian America trying to save his family farm and protect his younger brother. The film had its world premiere at the Nashville Film Festival on September 26. He is now in production on Netflix’s Better Than the Movies.
The Team Behind The Spaceship Earth Pilot
Jason Fuchs, a co-showrunner of HBO’s IT: Welcome to Derry, is the showrunner and co-wrote the pilot with Michael Waldron, the creator of Loki and a co-writer of Avengers: Doomsday. Lee Toland Krieger, whose credits include You and Shadow and Bone, directs. Fuchs, Waldron and Krieger executive produce with Adam Fishbach and Adam Fasullo, and 20th Television is the studio.
This is not Fuchs’ first Disney ride. ABC ordered his Big Thunder pilot, based on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, in January 2013 and passed on it that May.
A pilot order is not a series order, and Disney+ has handed out several this year, including a Mickey Mouse Club reboot, The Last Kids on Earth and an Aquamarine sequel series. No production start or premiere window has been announced for Spaceship Earth.
The Ride That Inspired It
Spaceship Earth is the slow-moving dark ride inside EPCOT’s geodesic sphere, and it has operated since the park opened in 1982. It takes guests through the history of human communication, from cave paintings to the computer age.
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