Just when it seemed Bluey-mania peaked in 2024, the year is ending with a major announcement for the future. After inspiring a hardware store rebrand and getting its own theme park, amidst releasing both longform and super-shortform episodes of its TV series, the Heeler family is headed to the big screen! And we didn't even have to send the Grannies to intimidate anyone.
Unfortunately, it's not all great news. This exciting announcement comes with a bittersweet detail that I'm sure some will be upset about.
The BBC and Disney announced that a movie is in development, scheduled for release in 2027. The Bluey movie is written and directed by creator Joe Brumm, who posted a special message to fans within the press release, where he talked a bit about how he came up on the idea for a movie, which will be available to stream with a Disney+ subscription after its theatrical run. As Brumm put it:
After some time spent away from the series, working on another project, an old idea resurfaced and before I knew it, I’d written a Bluey feature script that I really love. Fast forward through a tonne of contracting and we’re about to embark on making an animated Bluey movie!
No details are available regarding the movie's plot, but we do know the Bluey voice actors that fans have come to love are all involved. Additionally, it's confirmed the new feature-length project is being led under the direction of Joe Brumm, who noted in the release he was inspired by the increased episode length of "The Sign." It seems he agreed with fans like me who felt like Bluey is best with a longer runtime.
And Now For Bluey's Bad News
I mentioned some bad news at the beginning of this story, and Brumm hit us with an unexpected announcement following the news he's working on the movie. As he explains in the statement below, he has no current plans to return to Bluey for Season 4, and it may mark the end of his run for the series:
Now, for the trifficult. I always said I wouldn’t keep making the show if I thought I couldn’t make any new season as good as the last. This would have been the case for me with a potential season four, so I’ve decided to take a break from my involvement in the TV series. In the event I can’t wrap my head around doing more seasons myself, The Sign will mark my TV finale for Bluey and I wrote it as such...To be clear, this is not an announcement about the end of the show, but it is an acknowledgment that my focus will be on the film.
I can't imagine Bluey without Joe Brumm at the helm, but that's mainly because we've never seen what the show looks like without him. Hey, maybe we'll even get that crossover with The Simpsons that's been talked about, though I have no idea whether Brumm was preventing that or not. Considering the number of Bluey references to one of the best animated shows of all time, I would say the odds were better with him in the mix.
I also want to note that while Brumm noted he won't be working on Season 4 because of his commitment to the movie, he could possibly find more inspiration in the gap between now and the release to return to Bluey to convince him to work on more episodes. It's hard to speculate too much on this, considering fans out of the loop may not even notice a difference in his absence, so maybe we should wait to see how Season 4 goes before reacting too strongly, especially if this is what Brumm truly wants.
The Bluey movie is coming in 2027. In the meantime, we have three seasons of the original series to watch, as well as all the fun minisodes worth checking out.
